Cotton: Traditional and Modern Uses

Abstract

Cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., is one of the most important crops for humanity. It is placed among the top ten most widely grown crops in the world even though its main purpose is not food. In addition to the appreciation for its fibers, cultures learned to use the whole plant for many uses, from controlling reproduction and pharmaceuticals to pigments and cattle feed.

Wild populations of this species, that inhabit coastal dunes and lowlands, are heavily impacted by multiple factors that limit their proper conservation, such as land use changes caused by the development of resorts, roads, residential areas, and the general disturbance of coastal areas. On the other hand, biosecurity measures currently taken have proved inefficient in the face of gene and transgene flow with cultivated relatives of the same species.

In 2002, we began to study the populations of wild cotton to propose strategies that could contribute to in situ conservation of the species in Mexico, its center of origin and diversity. Since then, we have made multiple visits to each of the cotton metapopulations and talked to the people living in the same communities. We also investigated the genetic diversity, interactions between plants and insects, bacteria and fungi while documenting uses and traditions preserved by the people, which became valuable contributions that motivated us to write this chapter. We noted that the problems caused by migration, poverty, and loss of consciousness by the younger generations transcend from cotton conservation to society as a whole. These situations pointed out that long-term conservation of plant genetic resources of Mesoamerica will only be possible through the preservation of ancient knowledge about the care of crop fields (such as milpa), traditional and medicinal uses of plants, indigenous languages, gastronomy and general habits and customs that shaped the great biodiversity of Mesoamerica to domesticate over 150 crops that are important to humanity today.

Thus, one way to create conservation strategies for these plants is to make information available to all public about their past, present, and potential uses in order to promote care for the plants and their environment at local and global levels. In this chapter, we will discuss traditional and current uses of G. hirsutum, especially in Mesoamerica, because this region is its center of domestication and therefore, where the longest relationship with human civilizations has been established. Here, we show that instead of taking advantage from their great potential for generating long-term biosafety conditions and improving conservation strategies for this species at its center of origin and diversity, our society is wasting opportunities of the multiple uses cotton could provide.