Sugarcane Stalk Traits for High Throughput Phenotyping in Restricted Irrigation Regimes

• Published in: Sugar tech : an international journal of sugar crops & related industries Vol. 25; no. 4; pp. 788 - 796
• Main Authors: Srinivasavedantham, Vasantha, Raja, Arun Kumar, Vengavasi, Krishnapriya, Tayade, Arjun Shaligram, Shareef, Anusha, Govindakurup, Hemaprabha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.08.2023; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agriculture; Aqueous solutions; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Crops; Evapotranspiration; Fruit juices; Genotypes; Irrigation; Juices; Life Sciences; Moisture content; Phenotyping; Reduction; Research Article; Sucrose; Sugarcane; Turgidity; Water content; Water deficit; Water use; Water use efficiency; Correlation; Cane volume; Deficit irrigation; Varietal selection; Juice volume
• ISSN: 0972-1525; 0974-0740
• DOI: 10.1007/s12355-023-01242-7

Sugarcane stores sucrose in an aqueous form in the parenchymatous internodal tissues. Juice volume in sugarcane being an indication of the turgidity level of cane, the genotype and environment significantly affects sucrose content in the juice and juice volume. Juice volume, being a measure of the storable aqueous media, might suggest the varietal potential to sustain water content in canes even under severe water deficit condition. Hence, an attempt was made to assess the influence of restricted irrigation regimes on juice volume, sucrose, cane yield and related traits in a field trial involving twenty varieties and three irrigation treatments. The irrigation treatments included I 1 : full irrigation at recommended interval, with 100% crop evapotranspiration (ET) replacement (control); I 2 : restricted irrigation at recommended interval, with 50% crop ET replacement (50% by volume) and I 3 : restricted irrigation at alternate interval, with 50% crop ET replacement (50% by frequency). Juice quality traits at harvest showed significant variation among the treatments as well as genotypes. Juice volume and cane volume showed significant and positive correlation with cane yield, suggesting the possible use of these traits in identifying varieties with high water use efficiency. The juice volume varied from 8173 to 46,627 L ha −1 , while cane volume ranged from 60.9 to 157.9 m 3  ha −1 in control ( I 1 ). In I 2 , the reduction in juice and cane volume was 45% and 36%, respectively. In I 3 , the juice volume reduced by 62%, while cane volume reduction was 56% compared to control. Promising varieties such as Co 10026, Co 85019, Co 86249 and Co 86010 exhibited higher juice and cane volume under restricted irrigation treatments.