Cotton is a multipurpose crop and produces lint, the most important source of fiber used in the textile industry, oil, seed meal, and hulls. Twenty-three chapters on various aspects of in vitro manipulation and other biotechnological approaches to the improvement of cotton are arranged in six sections. Special emphasis is placed on interspecific hybridization, somaclonal variation, transgenic cotton resistant to insects and herbicides, and re-engineering of fiber. This book is of special interest to advanced students, teachers, and research workers in the field of cotton breeding, genetics, tissue culture, molecular biology, and plant biotechnology in general.