The origin and breeding of the cotton variety IAC 18, the involved procedures and numerical results are presented and discussed. The increasing occurrence of bacterial blight Xanthomonas campestres pv. malvacearum in cotton fields of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, motivated cotton breeders of the Agronomic Instituto at Campinas, to program the breeding of a bacterial-blight-resistant variety for the State. Preliminary testes were made in 1964 with the collection of species and varieties. The line 95-96A-Bu 61 (B2, B3, B6) from Texas, U.S.A., was selected as the best donor parente to be used. This material was crossed, in 1966, with the most promising cotton inbred lines being studied in different breeding programs and two backcrosses were made in the following years. 'IAC 18' came from a plant selected in 1970, from a F4 population, whose descendente were studied by the usual pedigree breeding procedure used by the cotton staff of the Instituto. This variety presented the grade 2 in a scale graded from 1 (immune) to 5 (fully susceptible), when tested for bacterial blight resistance. It showed higher Fusarium wilt resistance than the largely cultivated, bacterium susceptible 'IAC 13-1', and surpassed this cultivar in regional variety teste, for all the economically important characteristics, specially productivity, fiber percentage, length of fiber and yarn strenght. 'IAC 18' was delivered for planting in the State in 1977, replacing the 'IAC 13-1'.
cotton breeding; bacterium resistance