Inheritance of resistance to Meloidogyne incognita race 3 in cotton accession TX 25

ABSTRACT. Cotton producers worldwide suffer with the losses caused by the presence of phytonematodes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the inheritance of resistance to Meloidogyne incognita race 3 in Gossypium hirsutum variety punctatum accession TX 25. Accessions of Gossypium sp. were obtained from the germplasm bank of Embrapa Cotton. Two experiments were performed in two consecutive years. In the first experiment, a susceptible parental line, FiberMax 966, a resistant parental line, TX 25, and their F1, F2 and backcross generations were tested. In the second experiment, parental lines FiberMax 966 and TX 25, their F2 generation, and genotypes M315 (resistant), LA887 and DeltaOpal (moderately resistant) were tested. In both experiments, plants were inoculated with 2000 eggs and J2 of M. incognita race 3. The gall index, egg mass index and reproduction factor were evaluated 120 days following inoculation. In the first experiment, plants from the F1 and backcross generations were susceptible. Plants from the F2 generation presented a 3:1 resistant-to-susceptible ratio in the two experiments, indicating oligogenic resistance.