“…It is one of the four wild Gossypium species that were independently domesticated by aboriginal domesticators more than 5000 years ago and transformed into fiber plants (Smith and Stephens 1971). Due to the high yield, long fiber and wide environmental adaptability, upland cotton became the most common Gossypium species on the market, accounting for more than 90% of the world production (Dhivya et al 2016). The planting area of upland cotton reached up to four million hectares in 2014, with an average yield of 1463.25 kg ha -1 in China (National Bureau of Statistics of People's Republic of China, 2014, http://www.stats.gov.cn/).…”