AgriLife Research at Texas A&M recently released new germplasm lines and cultivars of several commodities.

Three upland cotton germplasm lines and one new conventional cultivar, three corn germplasm lines, one bluebonnet selection, and one new wheat cultivar were approved by the Plant Release Committee at its Fall meeting and subsequently approved by the Director of Texas AgriLife Research. Victoria red grape also was approved as a co-release with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

TAM RNR 9 and TAM RNR 12 upland cotton germplasm lines were developed by Jim Starr, nematologist with the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, collaboratively with Wayne Smith, Cotton Breeder in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.

These germplasm lines exhibit resistance to Rootknot, Meloidogyneincognita, and Reniform, Rotylenchulus reniformis, nematodes. The resistance to reniform nematode is only moderate resistance and was introgressed from a Gossypium barbadense accession, TX 110, into an upland germplasm line, M-315, that is highly resistant to rootknot nematode.

Better quality

TAM 04WB-33s was developed by Wayne Smith, Steve Hague, and Eric Hequet and produces fibers that are 11percent  longer, 16 percent stronger, and 7 percent finer than the best quality cotton cultivars available for Texas today. This combination of length, strength, and fineness resulted in 100 percent cotton yarn that was 27 percent stronger than that produced from current cultivars.

Tamcot 73 was approved for release as a conventional upland cotton cultivar to provide an alternative for producers in central and south Texas who might prefer not to plant transgenic cultivars. This new cultivar exhibits excellent yield potential combined with a fiber quality package that is competitive or exceeds that of most other cultivars available today.

Kerry Mayfield, Seth Murray, and others released three corn germplasm lines that carry varying levels of resistance to aflatoxin, produced from infection with Aspergillus flavus. In field experiments where plants were inoculated with Aspergillus flavus, hybrids made with Tx736, Tx739, and Tx740 exhibited 30 percent to 73 percent lower levels of aflatoxin.

Victoria Red grape was co-released with the University of Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. Victoria Red is high yielding and has red skin color in large, attractive clusters. While it was not released as having resistance to Pierce’s disease, it has maintained productivity along the Texas’ Gulf Coast while other cultivars of table grape have suffered from this disease.

TAM 113 wheat cultivar is adapted for production on the Texas High Plains and similar production regions in adjacent states. It was developed by Jackie

Rudd, wheat breeder headquartered at the Amarillo Research and Extension Center, collaboratively with several co-developers.

TAM 113 is a medium maturing hard red winter wheat with yield potential similar to TAM 111 and 112 but with better bread making qualities and improved leaf rust and stripe rust resistance.