Sugarcane clones evaluation at early stages Venezuelan variety development program

Abstract

The Venezuelan Sugarcane Variety Development Program (VSVDP) is located at the Yaritagua Experimental Station, Peña Municipality, state of Yaracuy, and it is ascribed to the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrícolas (INIA). The program’s goal is to produce and select Venezuelan varieties of sugarcane (Saccharum spp. Hybrid). It comprises a series of five stages of selection, one seedling phase and four clonal selection phases, whose full cycle lasts about 12 to 14 years. In this work, twenty-eight clones were evaluated in the selection stage IV, called Replicated First Essay, for three annual and consecutive cycles, under a randomized block design with three replications. Bud break (%), Pol %, apparent cane or sucrose content,  tons of cane per hectare  (TCH),  pol tons per hectare (TPH) were evaluated. Results showed highly significant differences for sprouting, highlighting the clones  V98-78,  V98-95,  V98-56, and V98-37, with an average of 40.58%. As for the yield-related variables, especially in TPH, materials that excelled in all cycles, outperforming commercial genotypes were V98-62, V98-120, C266-70, C137-81, and V98-39, with above 20 TPH in the first cycle. These results, together with the phytosanitary evaluations allowed to select these experimental genotypes to move to the final stage of the program called regional trials.