Biomass potential of novel interspecific hybrids involving improved clones of Saccharum

Saccharum spontaneum has contributed a wide range of important traits such as high vigour, hardiness, ratooning ability and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses to modern sugarcane cultivars. The interspecific hybrids involving S. spontaneum has the greatest potential as energy canes in view of their high biomass potential. The hybrids are highly productive, have high fibre content, tolerance to biotic stresses and can be grown under suboptimal conditions. In the present study, 32 interspecific hybrids involving improved Saccharum were evaluated for sugar and biomass contributing traits for two seasons. The results indicated that the hybrids generally have higher biomass potential compared to the commercial varieties. The variation among the clones for different traits was significant. The clone × year interaction was highly significant for all the traits indicating that the clones performed differently during the two seasons. Thirteen of the hybrids recorded significantly higher dry biomass yield than the population mean of 46.51 t ha−1. Fibre% was positively correlated with dry matter% as well as dry biomass and it did not show any significant association with the juice quality traits indicating the possibility of combining both increased fibre and sugar content in the same genotype. Among the various traits studied, fibre%, number of stalks/plot, stalk yield and fresh biomass yield were found to be positively correlated to dry biomass yield.