Early Development of Indonesian Cotton with Enhanced Resilience to Climate Change through Mutation Breeding

Abstract

Indonesia is one of the top ten largest textile producer countries in the world. However, only 1-2 % of the national cotton demand was produced locally. The total value of imported cotton in Indonesia is nearly US$ 1 billion/year in 2017. Some of the production restrains were few cotton cultivars which are tailored specifically for Indonesian climate, only some regions of Indonesia are suited for cotton cultivation, and most cotton farmers rely on rainfed irrigation. Induced mutations are widely used for the introduction of genetic changes, particularly in crops that are not easily improved through conventional techniques. IAEA initiated a regional research project for cotton breeding in Asia region. Indonesia was invited to join this program in 2018, made it in total eight participating countries. Some genotypes from NIAB - Pakistan was distributed to all members as exchange germplasm to be utilized in adaptation trials and also used as genetic materials in each country breeding projects. At present, the Indonesian cotton mutation breeding is an ongoing program in M2 generation using irradiated three cotton cultivars (NIAB-KIRAN, NIAB-112 and NIAB-777).