Evaluation of Elite Sugarcane Clones for Cane Yield and Component Traits Using Augmented Design

Abstract

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrid complex), being an important industrial crop is always under tremendous pressure of improvement in term of cane and sugar yield. Therefore like other crops large number of sugarcane germplasm and breeding material is screened for identification of improved clones. To tackle the problem of limited seed or space, Augmented Block Design was used to screen 112 diverse clones because replications were not required in it. Analysis of variance revealed the significant effects due to checks and varieties for germination, number of shoots at 120 days, number of tillers at 240 days, number of millable canes, single cane weight and cane yield per plot. While the adjusted block effects were non-significant for all traits except, number of tillers at 240 days, number of millable canes and cane diameter indicated homogeneity of evaluation blocks. Similarly, the significant mean square due to checks v/s varieties indicated that the test entries were significantly different from checks. 38 and 12 clones were identified better over check CoPb 92 and CoPb 93 respectively for cane yield. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for number of shoots at 120 days, number of tillers at 240 days, number of millable cane and cane yield per plot indicated that selection for these characters will be effective for future improvement of clones.