Fungal diseases of cotton, in particular Fusarium oxysprum f.sp. vasinfection, are important in Iimiting the yield and production of cotton in Australia. Improvement of crop resistance is a major strategy in the control of the impacts of disease on cotton production. We have therefore conducted a long-term program to incorporate transgenes for putative antifungal proteins into cotton germplasm.

The aim of the project is to improve cotton's tolerance to fungal pathogens. We have targeted the vascular, root-invading pathogens, Verticillium and Fusarium, but one of the advantages of antifungal proteins is that they may be effective against a range of pathogens. Therefore the material we have generated has the potential to have improved tolerance to several fungal diseases. Our original focus was on Verticillium wilt, and our testing of transgenic lines was conducted using this pathogen. However, with the increasing importance of Fusarium, in wilt to the industry, we decided to shift to using Fusarium as our test organism.