Historic Cotton Breeding Tours 2022

The Extra Long Stapled Cottons hold a special place in the history of the textiles and in my heart.

In the world of fabrics we hear of Sea Island, Egyptian and Pima Extra Long Staple Cottons (ELS) quite a bit. Usually accompanied by a sigh of awe from those in the know. You may recall that the cotton fiber is a single cell that grows from the surface of the seed coat; imagine - a single cell one and a half inches long! This incredible cell/fiber grows from the maternal tissue on the surface of the seed. Which is why any cross pollination one makes does not express the mixing of parental traits until those F1 seeds are planted and the offspring plants produce seeds with their fiber growing from it. The ESL cottons are all members of one of the the species of cotton domesticated in the America's ( by people in what is now part of Peru at least 4500 BCE) : Gossypium barbadense. The fiber produced from this species sloughs off from the seed freely revealing naked seeds and up until the saw gin was put into use, mostly this species was grown as it was significantly easier to hand gin. With fiber lengths ranging from 1.25" to reportedly 2.5" the strong, fine and lustrous fiber was prized by spinners around the world.

Botanical historians wrote that when the expedition from Spain arrived in Hispaniola in October of 1492 that the people on that island had been cultivating the most abundantly grown cotton domesticated in the Americas:  Gossypium hirsutum(which has fuzzy or hairy- hirsute- seeds whose lint is harder to pull off by hand) for thousands of years already. But they had just imported and began growing theG. babadensecottons three years before. Which is how it happened that when the expedition returned to Europe with gifts of "cotton bowls" both of the species of cottons domesticated in the America's with extraordinarily spinnable fibers were represented. Swiftly these two species made their way to Asia via the silk road. Of course, people all along the way began growing them too. The fiber of both species reportedly being easier to spin than the two species that they had been growing for many thousands of years themselves. A deep dive into this history can be found by reading what historians at the time wrote about these cottons that were new to them. The Cotton Museum Cairo reference below has a treasure of such writings. 

G. barbadense  or ELS cottons with their superior fiber quality (as far as spinners are concerned) was unfortunately associated with lower yields and plants that demanded higher quality soils than the sturdyG. hirsutumvarieties that are grown in 90% of the world nowadays.  

By the 1990's some of the most senior cotton breeders managed to develop varieties of Pima and Sea Island grown in the high deserts of the southwestern US that began to bridge the yield gap without compromising the impressive fibers so loved by spinners. One of these breeders, Dr Carl Feaster used to visit me and my breeding nursery while I was in Arizona in 1993-96. This quiet, kind and humble octogenarian encouraged me at the very time that it mattered the most to me. In his youth, while employed by the USDA as a plant breeder his first task during WWII was to breed textile hemp for the military effort. He was proud to share that his varieties had stem fibers as fine and strong as linen. Next the USDA sent him to Arizona to join the Pima cotton breeding project. In the early 20th century the Goodyear Tire company had established the production of Egyptian Cottons in the Litchfield Park area west of Phoenix, AZ for use in tire manufacturing. The varieties that they developed became known as Pima cotton. Prior to the development of steel belt tires in the mid 50's, the extremely strong and long fibers of the ESL cottons were crucial. Also, these same cottons were used to clothe the first airplanes. In fact theSpirit of St Louiswas wrapped in Pima cotton fabric grown in Arizona.

Dr Feaster joined the effort when the industrial uses were fading and apparel and home furnishing textiles began utilizing these fibers more extensively. Yield improvements generally allow for a lower sales price and so yield without loss of quality is what became a focus. It took me sort of picking up a loose thread from the 80's to appreciate the magnitude of this team's accomplishments. And it is this very achievement that inspired me to plant this historically important cotton collection. And to offer tours of it.

Early in the beginning of my work with these cottons of natural color and vigor, the world of plant breeding was changing. The breeder that I first worked for was known for his advancements in breeding soil born disease resistant tomatoes and cotton varieties. The elders of the industry depended on their observational skills- noticing when particularly important qualities might be linked to something visible in the growing stage of the plant. In the books from the 19th and early 20th Century all sorts of linkages were discussed. An elongated boll shape was associated with a longer fiber. The rounded bolls so common inG. hirsutumassociated with short fiber. But the plant breeders of my generation were beginning to use statistics and computer analysis which opened up new systems of discovery that seemed to eclipse observational skills. Sometimes the ideas championed by the breeders of my age cohort seemed odd and counterproductive. Which led to worry and saddened some of the elder titans of the plant breeding world. Perhaps for this reason, the old fashioned observational approach that I used in my breeding program opened doors for me with these people of vast experience and knowledge. And maybe for this reason I was actually offered a paid job as a cotton breeder for the Sea Island Cotton Project in Barbados. The group was trying to find a way to produce cottons with lints longer than 2" in length, which were believed to be the standard prior to the US Civil War. 

A combination of insecurity due to my age and the fact that I came to cotton breeding from a biological control/pest management background left me unwilling to believe that I could be of any help in reviving the Sea Island cotton lengths of over 2" once grown. I sure was fascinated, but I would not be allowed to work on my naturally colored cotton program there, even on my own time. So, I sadly declined.

But I never stopped wondering about how a Sea Island seed line bearing a fiber of over 2" could possibly be restored. In 2014 I decided to request a series of historically importantG. barbadensevarieties that the USDA seed bank makes available for plant breeders. I planted 24 different seed lines from them in 2015 and watched them grow with great fascination. Some turned out to be not evenG. barbadense. Sea Island is a great marketing name, but Bulgarian Sea Island ended up being an upland cotton. Others were not that distinct from others. In the end I used many different lines to make a series of cross pollinations that I hoped would illuminate if by making the correct cross pollinations, extra length in fiber could be generated. And I self pollinated a few so that I could keep my favorite and most interesting historical lines going. 

These then are the basis of the cottons that I wish to share on tours with any of you who wish to visit my farm on the specific times and dates that I have opened up on the website. https://www.vreseis.com/shop/donation-historical-cotton-tour

These tours are the second of what I hope are creative offerings in the hopes of getting enough donations to fund the large improvements that I have made on the farm that should allow me to continue my work with these cottons for ten more years. The first offering remains the historical cotton F1 seeds for container plants that need to be kept away from frost. There are still some of these special seeds left. 

Among the memories that I hold most dear are walking my breeding nursery with the breeder of PimaS7 ( the most modern of theG. barbadense'son the tour), Dr Feaster. Who even in his 80's was still advising on the breeding of Pima cottons. Observing how he approached selecting individual plants, I learned more from how he seemed to experience the plants than anything ever said. 


 

References :  

https://www.thecottonmuseum.com/en/capitolo/4/The-Botany-of-Gossypium-Cotton-Egypt-Pima-Mont-Serrat-Sea-Island-Jumel-Giza-45-Giza-87-Karnak-Menoufi-Micronaire-and-The-Thread-Count/continua_avanti

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep17662 

https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/anh.1999.26.2.211

https://www.discovertheregion.com/arrival-of-goodyear-tire-rubber-co-1916-planting-cotton/

a last little footnote: 

One of the many cotton mysteries is that these cottons domesticated in the America's are tetraploids. That is they have 4 sets of chromosomes. In Gossypium barbadense two sets of the chromosomes come from a diploid (two sets of chromosomes) cotton whose seeds bear no lint native to the Americas (G. ramondii). The other two sets of chromosomes come from this fiber bearing cotton considered native to Africa and Asia:  G. arboreum. Still grown and treasured in Asia. G. hirsutum (upland, acala and 90% of cottons grown worldwide now) also include the lintless G. ramondii native to the Americas, but the other cotton domesticated in Africa and grown throughout Asia for millennia: G. herbaceum. These two species can be crossed and produce viable seeds. But the offspring tend to settle back into the forms of the parent species over the generations. From the very beginning of my work, forty years ago, I turned to the G. barbadense cottons to cross the first of the G. hirsutum brown cotton seed lines with in the hopes of improving the fiber quality.