A Guide to Grafting for Cotton (Gossypium Hirsutum L.) Virus Transmission and the Successful Transmission of Cotton Leaf Roll Dwarf Virus

Abstract

A new virus in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) required the need to graft plants to evaluate resistance. In searching the literature, several studies reported grafting, however the details surrounding the types of grafts, age, and acclimation environment are not described in detail. A graft is the union of rootstock and scion requiring good cambial tissue contact to be successful. Therefore, several different graft types, and the need for humidity was investigated. Initially, thirty plants were grown in the greenhouse. The first set of grafts were performed on fifteen plants between two graft types (T-graft and bottle shoot) and the need to be bagged for cambial humidity. The second set of fifteen were used to test the wedge, saddle-graft, whip-and-tongue, bottle shoot, and approach grafts on three plants each. The T-graft was chosen as the best for success as it provided the highest cambial contact. A set of twenty plants were grown to serve as rootstock for cotton leafroll dwarf virus (CLRDV) transmission. Two different infected CLRDV plants served as the scion for the virus which were grafted using the T-graft. Three leaves below the graft node were used to test for the virus using PCR. Fourteen of 20 grafts had successful transmission of CLRDV, regardless of graft success.

Grafting based DNA methylation alteration of snoRNAs in upland cotton (Gossypium L.)

“…Increased SVI and 100SW in PT indicated that Pima rootstock positively affected SVI and 100SW of Upland scion. It is known that rootstocks are able to change the physiological environments in scions such as water potentials, concentrations of mineral elements, and hormones (Cookson and Ollat 2013 ; Kundariya et al 2020 ; Heilsnis et al 2021 ; Liu et al 2023a , b ). Larger seeds are supposed to have higher SVI, but this was not the case seen in ungraft (TK), which had similar values of 100SW with PT.…”

“…Although grafting has been commonly used in horticulture for a long time, the biological mechanisms driving rootstock-induced alterations of the scion phenotype remain unknown (Avramidou et al 2015 ; Liu et al 2023a , b ). Although cotton does not belong to crop species that are commercially grafted, such as cucumber, tomato, and watermelon, grafting in cotton provides alternative ways to investigate the genetic and epigenetic variations in Gossypium (Karaca et al 2020 ; Heilsnis et al 2021 ). The application of grafting in cotton included improving stress tolerance, increasing nutrient and water use efficiency, and cultivating cotton perennially for high yield and production (Garcia-Lozano et al 2020 ; Li and Zhao 2021 ).…”

“…It may be useful in cotton breeding for some reasons such as conserving and propagating special germplasms, utilizing heterosis, breeding new varieties, improving the survival rate of transplanted plantlets, and accelerating resistance gain for biotic and abiotic stress factors (Spano et al 2017 ; Cerruti et al 2021 ; Ye et al 2023 ). Furthermore, grafting could be used in cotton physiology and molecular biology research, such as the mechanism underlying root-shoot communication (Chen et al 2022 ; Heilsnis et al 2021 ; Jeynes-Cupper and Catoni 2023 ; Yang et al 2023 ).…”