Research Progress in Physiological Premature Senescence in Cotton

A process in which the life of a whole or partial cotton plant terminates prematurely within the available growing season as a result of inherent or environmental factors is termed premature senescence. Premature senescence induced either pathologically or physiologically, appears to be an abnormal termination in a total or partial plant before maturity, which usually causes depressed economical parameters in cotton. A series of inherent or environmental factors are attributed to such senescence. Based on previous studies, four hypotheses including imbalances of source and sink, nutrition, endogenetic hormones, and energy consumption by the extrinsic gene for transgenic cotton were proposed to interpret the physiological mechanisms of premature senescence in cotton.