Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.5, 213-221 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 216 4 Breeding and Utilization of Stress-Resilient Varieties 4.1 Identification and screening of drought- and heat-tolerant cotton germplasm Not all cotton varieties perform the same in drought or high temperatures. Some genotypes, such as MNH-786, KAHKSHAN, CEMB-33 and FH-142, have demonstrated stable heat and drought tolerance in multiple experiments and field tests and are regarded as materials worthy of key utilization in future stress-resistant breeding (Reddy et al., 2020; Zafar et al., 2021; Shani et al., 2025). However, it is not the case that stress resistance can be fully judged solely by yield performance. Some materials that seem to grow normally actually lack physiological toughness or fiber stability. Researchers are now also increasingly focusing on metabolic indicators such as proline content and antioxidant enzyme activity to screen genotypes that exhibit stronger stress resistance potential (Majeed et al., 2024). 4.2 Application of marker-assisted selection in stress resistance improvement The goals of drought resistance and heat resistance are not difficult to talk about, but traditional breeding relying solely on field selection is a bit slow. In fact, this issue was noticed by everyone many years ago. After the molecular markers came out, the situation began to change. Technologies such as QTL mapping, GWAS, and transcriptome techniques can now more quickly identify key genes associated with adversity, and when combined with MAS, they can precisely target breeding materials (Rahman et al., 2021; Rasheed et al., 2023; Patil et al., 2024). Of course, MAS itself also has its shortcomings, especially when the target trait is controlled by multiple genes and is also affected by the environment. It is not realistic to rely on it as a single tool to handle everything. But when it is used in combination with traditional breeding methods, it can indeed significantly accelerate the process. As for CRISPR/Cas9, many studies have now begun to attempt to apply it to stress response genes for direct "point-to-point" gene editing (Ahmed et al., 2024; Luqman et al., 2025). Compared with traditional screening, this approach has a shorter path and may be an even more important step in the future. 4.3 Evaluation of ecological adaptability of stress-resilient cultivars across regions It's easy to select the varieties and they can be planted in different places. Whether they all "adapt to the soil and water" is another matter. Sometimes, a material that performs exceptionally well in one place may fail when viewed from a different dimension. Breeders have witnessed this kind of thing too many times. Therefore, regional adaptability tests are an indispensable step. Generally, several places with significant differences in ecological conditions are found, and the same batch of materials are planted together. In recent years, technology has also advanced. Drones have entered the fields to help capture some indicators that were previously invisible to the human eye, such as canopy temperature and photosynthetic activity (Farooq et al., 2023; Gu et al., 2024). These high-throughput phenotypic analyses, in combination with multi-point field trials, enable researchers to more precisely determine whether this material is suitable for promotion to arid or high-temperature areas and whether it can maintain a stable yield. In the current context where climate change is becoming increasingly unreasonable, making such a judgment is actually of great significance for breeding decisions (Shahzad et al., 2022). 5 Smart Irrigation and Field Management Technologies 5.1 Design and control of sensor-based precision irrigation systems When to water the fields and how much to water is actually much more complicated than it sounds. Abnormal climate, differences in plots, and ever-changing crop demands make judgments based on experience, which is often not very reliable. In some places, excessive irrigation not only wastes water but also easily causes diseases. If the irrigation is insufficient, the crops won't grow well. At this point, the intervention of the sensor system becomes even more valuable. They can collect real-time information such as soil moisture and temperature. The background system, in combination with the Internet of Things and the embedded control platform, decides whether to irrigate and how much water to irrigate. Some systems have also integrated fuzzy logic or rule-based algorithms, enabling them to automatically adjust their plans based on the status of the plots without the need for constant human supervision. Although this type of method did not become widespread overnight, it is indeed replacing the previous practice of managing irrigation based on intuition, especially in areas with tight water resources or high production requirements, where it is more favored (Bin et al., 2023; Guo and Chen, 2024; Zhu and Luo, 2025).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==