Genetic base-broadening in the West Indies sugar cane breeding programme by the incorporation of wild species.

Abstract

Modern sugarcane varieties are complex interspecific hybrids and are highly polyploid with a degree of aneuploidy. Although progress was initially good, by the 1960s it was realized that the exceedingly narrow genetic base of the existing clones was beginning to impede further progress. The need for the introduction of new genetic material into breeding programmes was generally accepted. Several new collections of wild relatives of sugarcane were made, particularly of Saccharum spontaneum. A wider collection of the cultivated forms of S. officinarum was also accumulated. This chapter describes a genetic base-broadening programme in the West Indies that utilizes this wide diversity of genetic material. Essentially, the programme repeats the nobilization stage of the crop's evolution, on a wider genetic base.

Energy Cane: Its Concept, Development, Characteristics, and Prospects

“…To give example, only considering the species S. spontaneum, there are more than 300 accessions in the World Collection of Sugarcane and Related Grasses maintained at the USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository ( [54]; T. Ayala, personal communication) and many more in the main collection maintained by the Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, India, plus their own SBI collection [52,131,132]; also, there are many accessions maintained by individual breeding programs in several countries (e.g., [87,88,90,[133][134][135][136][137]). …”

“…Genetic base broadening of the sugarcane population using all of these related genera has been suggested since the 1960s, and many programs have been doing introgression with them (e.g., [19,46,[84][85][86][87][88]). …”

Construction of a crop—wild hybrid population for broadening genetic diversity in cultivated sunflower and first evaluation of its combining ability: the concept of neodomestication

“…Introgression from the wild compartment for genetic base broadening has been performed for many crops: sugar cane (Kennedy 2001), maize (Nelson et al 2006), oil palm (Soh et al 2003), rice (Xu et al 2004), bean (Singh 2001) tomato (Saavena et al 2001) and wheat (Reif et al 2005), with different strategies, aiming to enhance the genetic diversity without loosing the yield and the quality of the crop (Hodgkin 2001;Hajjar and Hodjkin 2007). The study of the potential adaptative variability in the wild germplasm for genes and traits of agricultural relevance is of special interest for breeders to develop the best strategy for the further releasing of the adaptative novelties of hybrids for crop improvement.…”