Breeding sugarcane for photo-thermo insensitivity.

Sugarcane flowering is a complex physiological trait sensitive to photoperiod and temperature. Though flowering is essential for breeding, it is undesirable for commercial cultivation, as it terminates vegetative growth and biomass accumulation. In peninsular India, most of the currently grown commercial varieties flower profusely leading to significant losses in cane, sugar and fodder (cane tops) productivity. Keeping these facts crossing was initiated at National Hybridization Garden, Coimbatore during 2007 and crossed material was planted at Sankeshwar during 2008–2009 to identify parents/crosses. Parents viz., Co 86032, Co 95021, CoC 671 and Co 740 were found proven as they produced high frequency of productive non/shy flowering progenies. Further, flowering, number of millable canes and single cane weight are highly repeatable and hence reliable for early generation selection. The identified productive non/shy and late flowering progenies could be exploited suitably for future breeding programmes after confirming their productivity potential.