The strigolactone-gibberellin crosstalk mediated by a distant silencer fine-tunes plant height in upland cotton

The optimal plant height is crucial in modern agriculture, influencing lodging resistance and facilitating mechanized crop production. Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is the most crucial fiber crop globally, but the knowledge of the genetic basis underlying plant height still needs to be discovered. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify the major locus controlling plant height (PH1) in upland cotton. The locus encodes gibberellin 2-oxidase 1A (GhPH1), with a 1,133 bp-length structural variation (PAV