This document summarizes the current status and future prospects of sugarcane breeding in India. It provides background on sugarcane as an important crop and describes the key national institutes involved in sugarcane breeding. The breeding objectives, methods like clonal selection and hybridization are outlined. Important historical developments are noted, such as the first successful inter-specific hybrid Co 205. Current promising varieties for different regions are listed and challenges like complex genome and narrow genetic base are discussed. The future prospects section describes ongoing and planned work in population improvement, abiotic stress tolerance, genome characterization and disease resistance.

2. CURRENT STATUS AND
FUTURE PROSPECTS OF
SUGARCANE BREEDING
PRESENTED BY
KULDEEP NAGAR
ID. 52525
GBPUA&T
PANTNAGAR

3. INTRODUCTION
• important agricultural cash crop in tropical and subtropical
region of the world.
• The main product of sugarcane is sucrose, which accumulate in
the stalk internodes.
• The importance of sugarcane has increased in recent years
because it provides industrial raw material for sugar,acetic acid,
paper, ply wood production.
• Sugarcane, Saccharum (sp. X= 6,8,10 & 12 ) is an important sugar
crop in all countries of Tropical Asia
• The genome size -10,000 mbp
• The sugar industry is the second largest agro-based industry in
India.

7. National Sugarcane Institute
1. Sugarcane Breeding Institute, ICAR Coimbatore-(Tamilnadu).
2. Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow-(U.P.)
3. . National Sugar Institute, Kalyanpur, Kanpur (U.P.)
4. U.P. Council of Sugarcane Research Sahjahanpur, U.P.
5. Indian Sugar Mills Association,, New Delhi
6. National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd New
Delhi.
7. .Vasantdada Sugar Institute Manjari Pune (Maharashtra)

10. Pioneer Breeders for nobilization of
Indian canes
C.A.BABE
R
T.S.VENKTARAMAN

11. HISTORY OF SUGARCANE BREEDING
• One of the most important landmarks in plant breeding
history has been the successful utilization of Saccharum
spontaneum in sugarcane improvement. In no other crop wild
species has been so effectively utilized to meet human needs.
• This wild species S. spontaneum shows high levels of
resistance against the whole gamut of biotic and abiotic
stresses.
• Dr. C. A. Barber, Sugarcane Specialist Sugarcane Breeding
Institute, struck upon the ingenious idea of using this wild
species for sugarcane improvement

12. • He crossed S. officinarum as female to S. spontaneum as male
with the idea of infusing resistance against biotic and abiotic
stresses in the cultivated sugarcane.
• The initial success with Co 205 as a popular variety in the
subtropical belt created that revolutionized sugarcane agriculture
not only in India but also in the entire sugarcane growing countries
of the world
• The present day commercial varieties are the products of crossing,
inter-crossing and back-crossing

18. Breeding objective
• High cane yield
• Moderate-high sucrose content
• Early to full season maturity
• Resistance to disease - Red rot, Smut, Wilt, Mosaic, Ratoon-
stunting disease, Grassy shoot
disease
• Resistance/tolerance to insect pests Shoot borer, Cane borer,
Pyrilla, Mealy bugs, White flies, Termites, White grub
• Tolerance to Abiotic stresses - Drought, Salinity, Flooding,
High temperature

19. Breeding Methods
• 1. Clonal selection
• 2. Hybridization
• 3.Mutation breeding

20. Clonal Selection
• Isolation of desirable clones from genetically mixed
populations.
• The mixed population may be native or unimproved, inbred
populations or hybrid populations.
• Since wild or unimproved population will usually be mixtures
of heterozygous clones it may be possible to isolate clones
superior for particular characteristics, which can be used for
breeding.
• The most fruitful populations for the clonal selection are the
hybrid populations created by breeder by careful choice of
plant varieties.

22. Hybridization
• : crossing between clones
• clonal selection with in the hybrid population .
• sugarcane varieties are commonly developed.,Since the
sugarcane plant is heterozygous, segregation will occur within
the F1 generation.
• Hybridization techniques: the hybridization procedures are
• facilitated by the technique of using detached arrows. They
are-
• polycross
• Biparental mating
• Field crosses: (common in India)
• Often used in early days of sugarcane breeding are made
simply by collecting seed from open pollinated plant. In this
case only female parent can be identified.

24. Field Crossing
• selection of Parents ; based on synchrony of flowering and the
desirable characters they possess.
• Parents are classified as
• more than 50% pollen fertility are used as male
• less than 30% pollen fertility are used as female
• Tested for viability using iodine staining, to decide which
genotype will be used as male, and a pollen fertility scale is
made to decide the direction of crosses.
• The female arrow is enclosed with a pollen proof cloth bag in
an aluminium lantern suspended from bamboo supports
erected in the field. The bag is raised to facilitate pollination
and tied up at the bottom after pollination.
• The mature seed is collected 25-30 days after completion of
pollination and dried to reduce the moisture content.

25. Flowering in commercial sugarcane variety

26. Plant inspection for pollen collection every morning 5.oo to
5.30 A.M

27. collected Pollen examing by breeder

28. Drying of pollen - high temperature and lower humidity

29. Collection of pollen

30. Tagging of pollen

31. Crossing in sugarcane

33. Marcotting
• Developed by the SBI,COIMBATORE which helps in controlled
crossing in protected areas.
• In this technique rooting in canes that would flower later, is
induced at the nodal region by covering two to three nodes
with mixture of sand, silt and organic matter in a suitable
container. The canes are then detached below marcotted
portion and kept in pots and made use of in crossing. ,
• it is not very much used since field crosses give better seed
set under Coimbatore conditions., However in countries
where it is difficult to make field crosses for various reasons,
the technique is being used extensively

34. Flowering in sugarcane
• Flowering and seed set under natural conditions is a very
serious problem in sugarcane that hampers varietal
development work the world-over.
• sugarcane flowering given the specific location of a place in
the globe. If sufficient growth of the crop is made available,
sugarcane flowers throughout the year in the equatorial
region, but is rendered completely sterile precluding any crop
improvement activities in this region.
• As one moves away from the equatorial plane towards north
or south, flowering period becomes more and more
restricted, but the fertility level gets increased.
• At places situated around 11o
north and south latitude,
flowering becomes restricted to 2-3 months in a
year(coimbatore)

35. • Rainfall during July – August is crucial to
better seed set

36. • In Northern hemisphere, flowering October middle to January
• In southern hemisphere flowering April middle to July middle.
• Fertility levels are the maximum in these regions , hence
majority of the sugarcane breeding stations are situated here.
SBI Coimbatore
• is one such place and it has certain added advantages:
• It receives rains in both the monsoon seasons
• It is situated in the leeward side of the western ghats that
provides ideal conditions of temperature, humidity and gentle
winds for flowering and seed set.
• Thus flowering and seed set under natural conditions in the
world are the best at Coimbatore

37. Historical Landmarks
• The first commercially successful inter-specific hybrid in the
world, Co 205, (S. officinarum and S. spontaneum) became
popular in Punjab during 1920s
• The varieties developed later by SBI, such as
• Co 419, Co 453, Co 740, Co 997, Co 1148, Co 62175, Co 6304.
• The variety Co 86032 notified for release in the year 2000
occupies most of the sugarcane area in tropical India at
present.
• Recently released sub-tropical varieties such as
• Co 0118 and Co 0238 ( Haryana, Punjab, Western UP,
Uttarakhand and Bihar)

38. Varieties for North East and North Central India
• Co 0232
• Co0233
Varieties for Peninsular India
• Co 0403 (Sammriddhi)
• Co 99004 (Damodar)
• Co 2001-13 (Sulabh)
• Co 2001-15
• Co 06027

39. Other promising Varieties
• Co 0314 -
• Early maturing clone for Peninsular zone.
• ( Co 7201 x Co 86011).
• Moderately resistant to red rot and resistant to smut.
• It possesses A1 quality jaggery .
• Co 0209-
• Early maturing clone for Peninsular zone
• Co 8353 x Co 86011.
• Resistant to red rot and smut also.
• It possesses A1 quality jaggery and 13.93 % fibre.

40. variety Year of
release
pedigree maturiy feature
Co pant
90223
2001 CVRC BO91 Medium(11
-12)
Tolerance
to Red Rot
Co pant
97222
2005 CVRC Co pant
84212
Medium(11
-12)
Tolrance to
Red Rot
Co pant
03220
2011 SVRC CO H 76 Early Tolerance
to Red Rot
Co pant
05224
2013 SVRC Co Pant
84212
Medium(11
-12)
RES. To
tolerance

41. Early Maturing varietes
1. CoPant 94211
2. Co pant 84211
3. Co pant03220
Medium maturing varietes
1. Co pant 97222
2. Co pant 99214
3. Co pant 05224
4. Co pant 90223
5. Copant 84212
Flood tolerent variety
CoPant09022

42. National Active Germplasm
1. CoPant 84212
2. CoPant 88220
3. CoPant 90223

44. Contd…
• Complex genome,
• Variable chromosome number,
• Rare flowering habit
• Narrow genetic base
• Poor fertility

45. Chromosome transmission during
nobilization

46. Future prospects
• Population improvement for yield and quality through Recurrent
Selection.
• Exploring the possibility of using sugarcane as a platform for
molecular farming
• Genetic engineering of sugarcane for enhanced salinity stress
tolerancence
• Isolation function & characterization of low temperature
tolerance responsive genes from high cold tolerant Saccharum
spontaneum ,Arunachal Pradesh collection

47. • Development of high sucrose genetic stocks utilizing Indian
and exotic hybrid varieties
• Genome characterisation of Saccharum using molecular
markers
• Tissue culture studies on interspecific & intergeneric hybrids
of Saccharum
• Identification of candidate genes and markers for red rot
resistance in sugarcane