2008 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416) Produce sugarcane seed of recommended crosses of clones from Louisiana, Texas and Florida for the ARS Louisiana sugarcane Breeding Program. 1b.Approach (from AD-416) Sugarcane clones will be imported from Louisiana, quarantined and tested for pathogens of leaf scald, ratoon stunt, yellow leaf and mosaic. Subsequently, the disease-free clones will be released and incorporated into the breeding population for crossing. The plants will be grown under conditions to maximize flowering by manipulating light treatments using photoperiod and light delay treatments. Recommended crosses will be made using female tassels pollinated with male tassels by maintaining plants on either photoperiod carts or on rail carts that are moved into heated structures at night to prevent emasculation by cold temperatures. After crosses are made the pollinated tassels will be held for seed set and the mature seed will be harvested and sent to the ARS program in Louisiana. 3.Progress Report In the 2007/2008 crossing season we made 385 crosses using 732 female tassels for the Louisiana ARS breeding program in Houma. An additional 298 crosses using 576 female tassels were made and shared between Louisiana and either the ARS Florida (222 crosses) program or the Texas A&M program (76 crosses). More than 100,000 seeds were sent to Houma, LA as a result of these efforts. Included are seed produced for the sugarcane borer resistance recurrent selection program. This relates to Objective 1 of the parent project: 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. Progress was monitored during the two weeks that scientists and support personnel from USDA-ARS at Houma, LA spent at USDA-ARS Canal Point, FL making crosses for Louisiana. In addition, there were several emails and phone calls between scientists at Houma and Canal Point to decide on parent genotypes to be used for Louisiana and to identify genotypes not currently at Canal Point that needed to be imported.