Project Number: 6625-13210-004-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Aug 05, 2008
End Date: Aug 04, 2013

Objective:
1. Develop more efficient breeding and selection methodologies for cultivar development and to produce seed of selected sugarcane germplasm for use in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. 2. Develop better agronomic practices for the Florida sugarcane industry. 3. Identify alleles or genes that can be used in molecular marker-assisted selection to complement the conventional approach of sugarcane cultivar development. 4. Identify agronomic and physiological relationships of sugarcane with stress tolerance to improve sugarcane cultivar development.

Approach:
Development of new cultivars with disease resistance, freeze tolerance, and high sucrose content will be advanced through genetic and genomics approaches. These will involve the utilization of a sugarcane genetic map with quantitative trait loci (QTL) and the identification of variation in candidate genes through gene expression profiling, and in some cases through developing markers for gene insertions. To improve cultivar development on sand soils, genetic studies will compare selection efficiencies on organic and sand soils and repeatability between selection stages, and agronomic research will seek useful traits for identifying high-yielding genotypes on sand soils. Agronomic research will also seek useful traits for identifying tolerance to shallow water tables on organic soils, and will examine sampling procedures for estimating fiber content.