Cotton Germplasm Resources in China

Introduction 1.1.History of cotton germplasm research in China China is one of the oldest countries that was found to have a long history of growing cotton.The remotest record was searched in one of the Chinese historic literature book Shang Shu.Yu Gong (about 300 BC), which described that cotton named Jibei was used to weave colorful cloth by the native people in the island of South China [1-2,4].The primary species of cotton were two diploids including G. arboreum L. in South China and G. herbaceum L. in West China, but G. arboreum L. was only kept growing in the south of the Five Ridges area, Hainan Island and Yunan until Huang Daopo (about 1245-1330AD) improved the technology of waving cotton fiber and brought it to Songjiang in Shanghai from Yazhou in Hainan.Then, G. arboreum L. was widely cultivated in the mid and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and was spread to North China in Ming Dynasty.G. herbaceum L. was firstly found to be planted in Xinjiang, but it was not popularized across the country, and was only cultivated in Xinjiang and Gansu Provinces in the past years.G. hirsutum L. was firstly imported to China by Zhang Zhidong in 1892-1893 and was cultivated in Hubei.G. barbadense L. was imported to China earlier than G. hirsutum L. and was mainly in Yunan province as perennial cultivars [3-5].Now China is the largest producer and consumer of cotton in the world.According to the World Bank, from 2005-2007, China produced 28.4 to 37 million bales of cotton and consumed 45 to 51.5 million bales in the country's domestic textile mill industry.On average, cotton was produced on ~5.6 million ha in China within three predominant growing areas including Xinjiang area, the Yellow River area, and the Yangtze River area.Similar to India, China's adoption of Bt-hybrids and cultivars have resulted in marked yield increases in recent years [6-7].The Chinese cotton germplasm collection located at the Institute of Cotton Research of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Anyang.A medium-term working collection located at Anyang, and a long-term collection located at Beijing, which was established in 1958.