Sugarcane cultivation in Mexico occurs under a wide range of socioeconomic, environmental and agricultural conditions, with the last three harvests (2010/2011, 2011/2012 and 2012/2013) providing yields ranging from 36-125 t ha-1 (variation > 347%), with an average yield of 70.2 t ha-1, which is below the world average of 80 t ha-1. The total area allocated to sugarcane production in Mexico is close to 800 thousand hectares, and could rise to nearly 5 million hectares given adequate conditions for its cultivation. This activity generates approximately 1 million direct jobs, 2.2 million indirect jobs, and more than 2.5 billion dollars (0.4% of GDP) per year. Climate change and the rapid market penetration of high fructose corn syrup are among the greatest threats to this agribusiness, including severe disintegration of production processes in the field, industry, commerce, and consumption of cane sugar. Technology lags, low investment, high processing costs and shortcomings in production sales are issues the industry must address by leveraging their resources and coordinating processing links to be more efficient and competitive. Political influence has imposed a suboptimal policy framework to achieve the projected potential. To overcome current lags in the field and refineries within the country, significant innovations across the value-chain are underway, including a robust breeding program, digitalization of sugarcane fields and novel investments in research and development. The sugarcane value-chain has great potential for Mexico, and exploiting this potential is possible if technological, organizational and commercial management innovations currently in progress in fields and factories are applied.
Objective: To describe the advances in the sugarcane variety selection program that is carried out by the Campus Córdoba of the College of Postgraduates in Agricultural Sciences located in Amatlán de los Reyes, Veracruz, Mexico.
Design/methodology/approach: For the selection of sugarcane varieties, the methodology developed by the Institute for the Improvement of Sugar Production (IMPA) was used, and for the varietal description, the protocol of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) was implemented.
Results: In 2009, the Campus Córdoba started the varietal selection program with more than 6 thousand hybrids from 40 crosses, of which 4422 materials were selected after showing resistance to the sugarcane mosaic virus. From the 4422 materials of the seedling phase, 352 clones were selected and evaluated in the Furrow Phase, selecting 57 varieties for the Plot Phase. Of these 57 varieties, 36 were selected in the Adaptability Test Phase, and 27 in the following Agroindustrial Evaluation Phase. Of these last 27 varieties, estimated yields are greater than 100 t ha-1, with good quality of juices and agronomic characteristics.
Study limitations/implications: The program has faced climate and budget challenges, delaying progress. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic has drastically affected our research.
Findings/conclusions: This breeding and variety selection program started with 6,000 crosses, of which to date there are 27 in advanced stages of selection, with the possibility of adaptation and good yields for the area of influence of the Campus Córdoba.
La caña de azúcar (Saccharum spp.) es el cultivo de mayor productividad a nivel mundial, y México se ubica como el sexto productor de azúcar y de caña de azúcar en el mundo.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.