Development of a Transformation Construct for Enhanced Disease Resistance

Insect and microbial pathogens pose an eternal challenge to our crop plants, developing novel ways to tap into food reservoirs. A multitude of management strategies have been tailored to control their proliferation, but the approaches have been successful only at high cost. Pesticide and fungicide usage has been a method of choice, but a newly emerging alternative in disease management is to enhance the resistance of plants by incorporating genes with antibiotic properties from foreign sources. Fungal and bacterial pathogens pose a major challenge to cotton. Fungal pathogens alone contribute to a significant reduction in yield in the United States. This project focuses on incorporating a gene homologue with antibiotic properties into cotton, which will enhance the resistance of cotton to microbial diseases.