**4. Storage, maintenance and funding**

*hirsutum* line L-458 [19; 20]. Readers can find detailed description of Uzbekistan's cytogenetic

Efforts focused on genetic mapping of important traits, application of marker-assisted breeding as an aid for contemporary breeding, and the development of cotton tissue culturebased transgenomics programs and their integration into conventional cotton improve‐ ment efforts have resulted in the creation and collection of novel germplasm resources in Uzbekistan. These novel germplasm resources were developed in the past decade by scientists of Centre of Genomics and Bioinformatics (CGB), ASUz, MAWR, and "UzcottonIn‐ dustry association" within the framework of international collaborations and government funding [1; 21; 22]. The CGB collection with over 5,000 germplasm resources (Table 1) includes (i) panels of association mapping and nested-association mapping populations [22; 23; 24], (ii) hybrids and recombinant inbred lines (F1-4) derived from the combination of sexual top crosses between 9 commercialized Uzbek cotton cultivars and 16 different chromosome substituted lines (CS-B) [25; 26; 27; 28; 29], (iii) germplasm resources devel‐ oped through marker-assisted selection (MAS) programs that bear novel quantitative trait loci (QTL) loci mobilized from unique donors to the genetic background of commercial Uzbek cotton cultivars via molecular markers, and (iv) tissue culture-derived, genetically modified (GM) germplasm and their hybrids to local cultivars that bear RNA interference (RNAi), synthetic hairpin oligonucleotides, anti-sense, or overexpression genetic con‐ structs for *de novo* characterized genes and sequence signatures in the CGB laboratories [1;

It is noteworthy to mention that association mapping individuals (Table 1) were selected from the IG&PEB collection and re-grown at the Mexico Winter Nursery of USDA-ARS by Drs. Russel Kohel and John Yu, (cotton germplasm Unit of USDA-ARS at College Sta‐ tion,Texas) for phenotypic evaluations and seed increase. Increased seeds grown at the Mexican environment kindly were sent back to Uzbekistan by Dr. Richard Percy (USDA cotton germplasm curator) and currently backed-up at the CGB and IG&PEB collections. Additionally, chromosome substituted (CS-B) lines were received within the frame of USDA-Uzbekistan Cooperation Programs, kindly provided by Dr. David Stelly (Texas A&M University), Dr. Sukumar Saha and Dr. Johnie Jenkins, USDA-ARS, Starkville, Mississip‐ pi, and now are preserved in both CGB and IGPEB collections. CGB scientists in collabora‐ tion with USDA partners are developing CS-B specific chromosome substituted recombinant inbred lines (CSRILs) in the background of important Uzbekistan cultivars. Further, development of cotton tissue culture and trangenomics efforts [21], and the mobilization of useful genetic constructs into commercialized cultivars has created novel germplasm resources, useful for cotton improvement and helpful to address many problems associat‐

ed with improving and boosting yield and quality [1; 22; 32].

cotton collection in this book.

**3.2. Novel resources**

294 World Cotton Germplasm Resources

22; 30; 31; 32].

The above-mentioned main collections and novel germplasm resources are stored and maintained in each institution and managed separately by its scientists. The IG&PEB, UzS‐ RICBSP, and NU collections are stored under room temperature conditions (20-25°C) and there is no facility available for cold storage of germplasm accessions [3; 8]. In contrast, UzRIPI [33] and CGB collections are stored in short term (under+4°C) cold room facilities that were established as a result of government and international funding (in the case of UzRIPI, [33]. No long term cold storage (-20 or-80 °C) facilities, requiring attention and investment, are available for any of the germplasm collections in Uzbekistan, as highlighted by Campbell et al. [3] and Abdullaev et al. [8].

Germplasm accession seeds are preserved according to commonly practised procedures used over the decades of germplasm maintenance efforts in each collection. For instance, according to previous reports [8] germplasm seeds are ginned and put into paper bags with a label of catalogue number, accession name, year of collection and origin. Paper bags also contain "*the weight of seeds (50 g or 100 g individual or total pick respectively*") and "*bags are stored in special metal boxes (30 x 11 cm) and boxes are placed in wooden-cases"* [8]. Other collections follow similar storage procedure with some modifications in types of storage boxes and variations in labelling of bags. Since 2003, after the reconstruction of the building for germplasm resources at UZRIPI, cotton germplasm seed have been stored in plastic containers [33].

Consequently, germplasm resources, in particular those without short term cold room facility, are scheduled for seed renewal every 8-10 years under forced self-pollination in the open field conditions [3]. Each organization has its own, but very similar protocols, schemes of planting, growing and evaluating germplasm (see [8] for detailed protocol for IG&PEB cotton collec‐ tion), government research grants and field extension stations with up to 8-10 staff working on germplasm maintenance. During a seed renewal year, accessions of re-grown germplasm are phenotypically evaluated for major agronomic and morpho-biological and fibre quality traits [3; 8].

Germplasm evaluation records from each collection are maintained as a hard copy catalogue book that contains all descriptions about accessions (origin, year, collector, collected sites, seed renewal, etc), and data from the past 50 years of evaluations [e.g. 34] In UzRIPI, there is a "Unified Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) list of descriptors for the species *Gossypium L* [35]. IG&PEB has started using modified "Cotton descriptor" of International Plant Genetic Resource Institution [see below for detail description; 3; 8]. Moreover, data records on germplasm accession characteristics and description are being currently entered into electronic Microsoft database formats (personal communications with germplasm heads of all collections). All cotton collections also have their own green‐ house facilities to vegetatively maintain [7; 8] wild and primitive accessions, unique multigenomic hybrids, mutants, and cytogenetics stocks as well as transformed and somatically regenerated lines.

As reported by Campbell et al. [3], all germplasm related activities and maintenance of the Uzbekistan cotton collections are funded by the Committee for Coordination of Science and Technology Development under the Cabinet of Ministry of Uzbekistan, MAWR, and ASUz where funds are given as competitive research and "a unique facility" maintenance grants. Moreover, each institution receives international grants for projects that utilize the germplasm resources, and therefore, budget funding for germplasm related works [3].

**6.1. Cotton germplasm descriptor and database**

modified "Descriptor for Cotton-1985" [Table 2; 8].

joint efforts toward this goal.

In UzRIPI, there is a computerized "CAC-DB" database for plant germplasm resources developed for Central Asian and Transcaucasian countries using Microsoft FoxPro [36; 37]. In this database, the principle information systems of the International Centre for Agricul‐ tural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) is used. Major characteristics for the entire cotton collection of the UZRIPI as well as UzSRICBSP have been described in an electronic catalogue in Microsoft Excel (Dr. Fyzulla Abdullaev, germplasm specialist of the UzSRICBSP, personal communication).

Cotton Germplasm Collection of Uzbekistan http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/58590 297

Within the framwork of USDA-Uzbekistan cooperation programs, CGB scientists in collabo‐ ration with IG&PEB colleagues and cotton germplasm Unit staff worked on updating the cotton cataloguing system. Scientists suggested the use of a modified version of the "Descriptor for Cotton" which was originally developed and approved by IPGRI in 1985 (http://www/ ipgri/cgiar.org). After considering recommendations from more recent descriptors for plant germplasm resources (e.g., Descriptor for Groundnuts-1992; and Descriptor for Pista‐ chio-2002) and consulting with IG&PEB germplasm curator and leaders (Dr. Abdumavlyan Abdullaev and Dr. Sofiya Rizaeva), some modifications were introduced to the "Descriptor for Cotton-1985" of IPGRI. In the modified descriptors, two categories: "characterization and preliminary evaluation" and "further characterization and evaluation" were combined into one category "characterization and evaluation" because of the lack of preliminary information for accessions that were brought from abroad to the IG&PEB collection. New sub-categories, such as 1) cotton boll size, and 2) natural leaf defoliation properties were introduced; in "Susceptibility to biotic stresses" diseases and disease sources, specific to Uzbekistan, were introduced. At present, about 1,000 Upland germplasm accessions have been characterized for main agronomic, fibre quality properties and molecular diversity [12; 23; 24] using the

Further, ~1000 *G. hirsutum* cotton accessions were selected from IG&PEB cotton collection and evaluated for major morphological, agronomic and fibre quality traits in the Uzbekistan and Mexican growing environments in collaboration with Germplasm Unit of USDA-ARS at College Station, Texas, USA [12; 23; 24; 38]. Data from the evaluations was collected according to above mentioned descriptor. Consequently, pc-GRIN software package (used in creating US plant germplasm database) and Microsoft Access software packages were used to develop initial basic electronic database of IG&PEB collection. This initial database contains most of information about accessions and morphological trait data, including fibre quality and yield properties as well as molecular-genetic data for each accession (such as in microsatellite marker genotypes, molecular diversity, etc.). There is ongoing effort to expand this database through adding additional germplasm accessions from periodic germplasm seed renewal evaluations. There is a need to apply the same procedure for all existing collections and coordinate future
