Abstract:
Identification of true interspecific hybrid progenies is important to produce
commercial sugarcane varieties. Four interspecific hybrid families with 12
progenies each of Saccharum officinarum and Saccharum spontaneum
established in the field in January 2017 were evaluated at the Sugarcane
Research Institute, Uda Walawe to identify true hybrids to utilize them in
back cross program in sugarcane variety improvement. The characteristics;
stalk length, stalk diameter, number of millable stalks per clump, field brix,
rind hardness, number of internodes per stalk and stalk weight per clump
recorded from each progeny were used for identification of true hybrid
progenies. Analysis of variance of the characteristics for hybrid families
revealed that there is a sufficient variability among families to undertake
family selection. There were significant differences among hybrid families
for number of internodes per stalk, field brix, rind hardness, number of
stalks per clump, leaf length and leaf width. The family 2 produced by the
interspecific cross between Korpi (S. officinarum) and IS 76 219 (S.
spontaneum) has been found superior to other interspecific families in
directional breeding of sugarcane. Transmission of characteristics to hybrid
progenies by the parents determined through narrow sense heritability was
high for field brix (0.88) and rind hardness (0.82) and moderate for leaf
width (0.68) and number of internodes per stalks (0.64). There were 10
progenies identified based on the result of cluster analysis as true hybrids
progenies for use in the future back crosses in sugarcane crop improvement.
