Cotton cultivar 02Z55

A method of introducing a desired trait into cotton line 02Z55 comprising:

• (a) crossing 02Z55 plants grown from 02Z55 seed, representative seed of which has been deposited under ATCC Accession No. PTA-______, with plants of another cotton line that comprise a desired trait to produce F1 progeny plants, wherein the desired trait is selected from the group consisting of male sterility, herbicide resistance, insect resistance and disease resistance;
• (b) selecting F1 progeny plants that have the desired trait to produce selected F1 progeny plants;
• (c) crossing the selected progeny plants with the 02Z55 plants to produce backcross progeny plants;
• (d) selecting for backcross progeny plants that have the desired trait and physiological and morphological characteristics of cotton line 02Z55 listed in Table 1 to produce selected backcross progeny plants;
• and
• (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) one or more times in succession to produce selected second or higher backcross progeny plants that comprise the desired trait and all of the physiological and morphological characteristics of cotton line 02Z55 listed in Table 1 as determined at the 5% significance level when grown in the same environmental conditions.