Genetic improvement in sucrose content in elite sugarcane clones of India

The sucrose content in sugarcane is the most important indicator in achieving a high recovery throughout the crushing season. Increasing the sugar content of cane is not as easy as increasing the yield of the cane. Genetic improvement in economic yield is a key to success in a breeding programme of sugarcane crop. For effective monitoring of the programme at the national or zonal level, it needs to be measured in quantitative terms at regular intervals. The overall genetic improvement in sucrose content was found positive from 1991 to 2019 in three groups, i.e. 1.53% from 1991 to 2000, 0.80% from 2001 to 2010, and 1.08% from 2011 - 2019 over the base period 1989 to 1990. However, the progressive trend was observed only in the Peninsular Zone. In Peninsular and North Central Zones, genetic improvement in sucrose content was increasing and found positive during 1991 to 2019. In recent years 2011-2019, a negative trend in sucrose content was observed in North West and East Coast Zones. Improvement in sucrose content was possible because the emphasis was more on the development of early maturing varieties in comparison to mid-late maturing varieties. From 1982 to 2018, nearly 72.45 percent of early maturing varieties were identified in India. These findings will help to identify the causes of trends in genetic improvement in framing the policies for varietal development programmes in a different zones. Such type of studies may be replicated for other crops to estimate the genetic improvement in different zones in yield based on the genotypes tested over a period of time under All India Coordinated Research Project network in the country.