Data describing Upland cotton cultivars and advanced breeding lines used in Colombia

In the last century, more than a hundred of cultivars were used in the cotton production system in Colombia. Breeding for cultivars adapted to tropical environments had been the main purpose of the Colombian agricultural research institutions dedicated to cotton. Data describing yield and fiber quality traits of these cultivars (and the introduced ones mainly from USA) is scattered across grey literature which reduces chances of discovering, accessing and assessing this information.This data article contains databases describing i) Colombian and introduced Upland cotton cultivars used in Colombia and ii) ramulosis-resistance scores of lines developed by the Colombian breeding program. The first database was constructed from data extracted from grey literature mainly produced by ICA and CORPOICA (rebranded today as AGROSAVIA), the Colombian agricultural research agencies. The second one describes the Cereté lines (LCER) database. These advanced breeding lines were developed for improved yield performance in tropical environments, specifically monsoon and savanna climates. The LCER dataset also describes the ramulosis field resistance of these cultivars. Ramulosis is an endemic disease in South America caused by Colletotrichum gossypii var. cephalosporioides. The data in this article supports and augments information presented in the research articles [1]: and [3].


Data
The datasets provided with this article describes i) Colombian and introduced Upland cotton plant materials used in Colombia and ii) ramulosis-resistance scores of breeding lines (BLs) developed by the Colombian breeding program in the last decade.

Plant material used in Colombia dataset
This file was constructed from data extracted from grey literature mainly produced by ICA and CORPOICA (rebranded today as AGROSAVIA), the Colombian agricultural research agencies. This dataset contains 220 entries that includes landraces, breeding lines, donor parents and commercial cultivars. Descriptors (Table 1) and references associated to the plant materials are included in this report.
The origin of the plant materials here described is mainly Colombian and American. It was not possible to verify the origin of 24 cultivars which contains some putative entries of Brazilian origin. Cultivars are mainly dominated by American introduced varieties while accessions of African origin (mainly from the CIRAD cotton program) were only used as donor parents in the Colombian breeding Specifications Value of the data The datasets here provided consolidate information related with introduced and Colombian Upland cotton cultivars used in Colombia in the last century. The data presented here describes the plant materials developed in the last half century by Colombian institutions providing a guidance paper for Colombian cotton breeders. This document provides a reliable unified source of data for the cotton production system. Previously, data related with cultivars was dispersed across grey literature from several private and public institutions.This database is expected to provide the framework for collecting yield, fiber quality and other phenotypic traits of cotton cultivars described in these reports. Data related with ramulosis resistance of advanced breeding lines is provided with the purpose of data comparison with other ramulosis resistance assays or its use in the design of new experiments. program ( Fig. 1). More than two thirds of the Colombian entries are BLs (Fig. 1). Colombian BLs and cultivars belong to three collections (Cultivar serie): Gossica breeding lines (GS). This collection was developed by the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA) in the 1960se70s and released them as commercial cultivars during the 1970se80s. Some of these lines were used for the LC cotton breeding program [1]. LC breeding lines (Líneas Cesar). These lines were created by CORPOICA in the 1990s using accessions of African origin developed by CIRAD, GS lines, STV115 and LC8590. LC8590 is a Colombian accession without records about its origin. Seven commercial cultivars were released from this collection in the 2010s: Gaitana M109, Corpoica M123, Caribeña M129, Oro Blanco M151, Llanera M110, Vallenata M135, and Sinuana M137 [1]. LCER breeding lines (Líneas Ceret e). This collection was obtained from crosses between LC breeding lines and cultivars of American and Brazilian origin. CORPOICA released the cultivars LCER044 and LCER007 as commercial cultivars [1].
Recently, AGROSAVIA released in the Colombian market cultivars of the LC collection containing transgenic genes for glyphosate resistance (cp4-epsps) and Cry production (cry1Ac and cry2Ab) with the designations of Nevada 123 OMG (OMG stands for genetically modified organism), Oasis 129 OMG and San Juanera 151 OMG (ICA resolution numbers 32582, 32583 and 32584 respectively). These cultivars belonged to the collection LCBG2RF.
Besides the files describing these cultivars provided with this paper (Appendix A), a permanent link for this dataset was created for future updates including new cultivars and/or additional information for the reported cultivars (https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/4gj74rhv72/1). Year when the variety was not available anymore in the Colombian market Adaptation region Region for which the variety was intended to be released.

Additional description
Additional description that is not included in these descriptors. ICA registration number Registration number issued by ICA for plant variety protection. ICA approval number Registration number for cultivars approved by ICA to be used as varieties for specific adaptation regions. It is the equivalent of the PVP number in USA, but it is not widely available in public documents.

Ramulosis resistance of LCER collection
The LCER advanced breeding lines were developed for improved yield performance in tropical environments, specifically monsoon and savanna climates. The LCER database describes the ramulosis field resistance of these cultivars. Ramulosis is an endemic disease in South America caused by Colletotrichum gossypii var. cephalosporioides. This dataset supports and augments information presented in the research article [3].

Description of Upland cotton cultivars used in Colombia
Google, Google Scholar, Agris (http://agris.fao.org/agris-search/index.do) and BAC (The Colombian Agricultural Library) (https://repository.agrosavia.co/) databases were searched for the names of the cultivars belonged to the GS, LC and LCER series and their ancestors. The terms cotton and cultivars in Spanish ("algod on" and "variedades") and "Colombia" were used for increasing the chances to identify additional information of any cultivar used in Colombia. Searches were complemented with previous reports that listed cultivars and the records for market release of cultivars issued by ICA, the regulating agricultural agency in Colombia.

Ramulosis resistance of LCER advanced breeding lines
Data related with ramulosis resistance was estimated from field experiments developed at two different locations (Turipan a and Motilonia RC) using ABLs and/or cultivars of the lines LCER and LC. Motilonia RC is located at the municipality of Codazzi (Cesar Valley, Cesar State, Northeastern Colombia) (coordinates 10.000, À73.250). The Cesar Valley is the second largest cotton producing region in the Caribbean and exhibits a dry savanna climate (As) according to the Koppen classification. Advanced breeding lines were arranged in triplicate plots in a RCBD design.This data is aggregated at plot (repetition) level showing the frequency for each disease level at the thirteen week after planting and different estimates of disease severity. Experiments are described in Ref. [3].
Ramulosis severity was estimated using a modification of a previously described scale [2] that allows better differentiation of plant resistance under high disease pressure conditions (Table 2). Both scales, the one presented here and the one described in Ref. [2], include 6 severity levels (p0 to p5), but they differ in the lowest severity level observed in the field. Under the high disease pressure observed in the experiments here described there was no presence of healthy plants (Level 0). At low disease pressure, no dwarf plants are observed (Level 6).