Performance of Elite Early Maturing Sugarcane Clones for Yield and Quality Traits During Varietal Selection Process

Abstract

Performance of fourteen early maturing sugarcane clones developed through fuzz was assessed along with two local checks and one promising variety as standards at Sugarcane Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Sirugamani during 2012-13. Data were recorded for germination, economic shoot, cane thickness, cane height, number of internodes/ plant, internode length, cane yield, Brix (%), Pol ( %), purity (%), CCS (%) and sugar yield. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among test clones for cane yield, sugar yield and its attributing traits. On the basis of overall performance, three test clones, namely Si 07-101, Si 07-017 and Si 07-082 showed good performance in respect of cane yield with average mean values of 134.60, 132.30 and 131.10 t/ha respectively against the best standard CoSi(SC) 6 (127.30 t/ha). While, the test clone Si 07-102 produced the lowest cane yield of 91.20 t/ha. The highest average mean sugar yield was observed in Si 07-131 (18.54 t/ ha), Si 07-017 (18.14 t/ah), Si 07-082 (17.21 t/ha) and Si 07-101 (17.00 t/ha) against the best standard TNAU Sugarcane Si 7 (16.01 t/ha). However, the test clone Si 07-102 gave the lowest sugar yield of 9.46 t/ha against the standards. On the basis of over all performance it was concluded that the test clones Si 07-017, Si 07-082, Si 07-101 and Si 07-131 need to be forwarded to next selection stage for further progression and testing.