The present invention is in the field of plant breeding and disease resistance. More specifically, the invention provides a method for breeding cotton plants containing one or more quantitative trait loci that are associated with resistance to Root Knot Nematode (RKN), a disease associated with Meloidogyne incognita. The invention further provides germplasm and the use of germplasm containing quantitative trait loci (QTL) conferring disease resistance for introgression into elite germplasm in a breeding program, thus producing novel elite germplasm comprising one or more RKN resistance QTL.
