Abstract
BackgroundSugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is an economically important crop with stalks as the harvest organs. Improvement in stalk quality is deemed a promising strategy for enhancing sugarcane production. However, the lack of efficient approaches for systematic evaluation of sugarcane germplasm largely limits improvements in stalk quality. This study is designed to develop a systematic near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) assay for high-throughput phenotyping of sugarcane stalk quality, thereby providing a feasible solution for precise evaluation of sugarcane germplasm.ResultsA total of 628 sugarcane accessions harvested at different growth stages before and after maturity were employed to take a high-throughput assay to determine sugarcane stalk quality. Based on high-performance anion chromatography (HPAEC-PAD), large variations in sugarcane stalk quality were detected in terms of biomass composition and the corresponding fundamental ratios. Online and offline NIRS modeling strategies were applied for multiple purpose calibration with partial least square (PLS) regression analysis. Consequently, 25 equations were generated with excellent determination coefficients (R2) and ratio performance deviation (RPD) values. Notably, for some observations, RPD values as high as 6.3 were observed, which indicated their exceptional performance and predictive capability.ConclusionsThis study provides a feasible method for consistent and high-throughput assessment of stalk quality in terms of moisture, soluble sugar, insoluble residue and the corresponding fundamental ratios. The proposed method permits large-scale screening of optimal sugarcane germplasm for sugarcane stalk quality breeding and beyond.
Highlights
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is an economically important crop with stalks as the harvest organs
Precise sugar content determination in sugarcane stalks high-performance anion chromatography (HPAEC)-pulsed amperometric detector (PAD) assay was performed to detect sugar content in sugarcane stalks, and the standard internal method was adapted for quantitative analyses
High R2 values were observed for the standard curves of each sugar (Fig. 1C), which indicated the reliability of the quantitative analysis
Summary
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is an economically important crop with stalks as the harvest organs. Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is a perennial C4 crop cultivated worldwide in subtropical and tropical zones. It is one of the most important industrial crops for sugar and ethanol production [1]. Advances in genomic tools and the decreasing costs of sequencing have enabled plant breeders to pursue large-scale precision breeding [5, 6]. In addition to these advances, the use of high-throughput phenotyping is anticipated to play a significant role in accelerating improvement in crop genetics [7, 8]
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