TUC 95-10 productive performance analysis by a multi-environment and multi-age mixed model

OSTENGO, S.; CUENYA, M.I.; BALZARINI, M.; GARCÍA, M.B.; CHAVANNE, E.R.

San Pablo

Congreso; XXVIII Congress of International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists; 2013

IN 2011, THE SUGARCANE Breeding Program of Estación Experimental Agroindustrial Obispo Colombres (Tucumán, R. Argentina) released variety TUC 95-10 commercially. The new cultivar was evaluated in a series of multi-environment trials across different crop ages to assess its productive performance in Tucumán sugarcane area and compare it with LCP 85-384, the principal variety in the province. On account of their flexibility, linear mixed models (LMM) allow the evaluation of the suitability of varieties with a multi-environment and multi-age single model, since they consider the existence of heterogeneous residual variances among different environments and the possible lack of independence among observations, i.e temporal correlations among crop ages and spatial correlation among neighbouring plots. This work aimed to evaluate the productive performance and industrial quality of TUC 95-10 with a multi-environment LMM through different crop ages. The trials were conducted at six locations during three crop ages (plant, first and second ratoon). LMM alternatives contemplated correlations (temporal and/or spatial) and heteroscedasticities for tonnes of cane per hectare (TCH), sugar content (SC%) and tonnes of sugar per hectare (TSH) in the structure of (co) variances of errors. The adjusted LMM provided a better fit of the data than that obtained with an ANOVA model with classical assumptions of homogeneity of error variances and independence of observations, while providing more precise estimates (lower standard errors) for statistical comparisons of expected yields. The results from comparisons of means and standard errors of the best models proved that TUC 95-10 is a variety with high yield potential, with TCH and TSH values significantly superior to those of LCP 85-384 across locations and crop ages.