Dissecting the Superior Drivers for the Simultaneous Improvement of Fiber Quality and Yield Under Drought Stress Via Genome‐Wide Artificial Introgressions of Gossypium barbadense into Gossypium hirsutum

Global water scarcity and extreme weather intensify drought stress, significantly reducing cotton yield and quality worldwide. Drought treatments are conducted using a population of chromosome segment substitution lines generated from E22 (G. hirsutum) and 3-79 (G. barbadense) as parental lines either show superior yields or fiber quality under both control and drought conditions. Fourteen datasets, covering 4 yields and 4 quality traits, are compiled and assessed for drought resistance using the drought resistance coefficient (DRC) and membership function value of drought resistance (MFVD). Genome-wide association studies, linkage analysis, and bulked segregant analysis are combined to analyze the DR-related QTL. A total of 121 significant QTL are identified by DRC and MFVD of the 8 traits. CRISPR/Cas9 and virus-induced gene silencing techniques verified DRR1 and DRT1 as pivotal genes in regulating drought resistant of cotton, with hap