Breeding for sugarcane smut resistance in Australia and industry response: 2006-2011

BSES limited commenced screening Australian varieties for resistance to sugarcane smut in Indonesia in 1998, a few months after the disease was found in the Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA) of Western Australia. Data from these screening programs provided important information on susceptibility of Australian commercial varieties to smut. After detection of smut in Queensland in 2006, BSES launched a large smut-screening program to accelerate the development of resistant varieties. Since then, approximately 10,000 clones from various stages of selection programs have been screened for smut-resistance. The proportion of resistant clones in the BSES breeding program increased from 40% to 68% since 2007. A strategy was developed to increase the number of resistant clones in the breeding program by not making crosses with a mid-parent smut rating greater than 6.5. The replacement of smut-susceptible varieties by resistant and intermediate varieties in commercial production increased significantly in all regions except New South Wales. The regional increase in production from resistant and intermediate varieties was 24% to 64% in Northern, <10% to 75% in Herbert, 65% to 95% in Burdekin, 25% to 72% in Central, and 21% to 81% in Southern regions. Four smut-resistant to intermediate varieties are dominant in most of the Queensland cane growing areas, accounting for approximately 70% of harvest. They are Q208(A) (28%), KQ228(A) (18%), Q200(A) (10%) and Q183(A) (9.5%). Already a large number of new smut-resistant productive varieties are available to the industry, and these should help to minimise the losses of production due to sugarcane smut.