Potential and Advanced Strategies for Sugarcane improvement

PERERA, M. F.; BUDEGUER, F; ENRIQUE, R; OSTENGO, S; NOGUERA, AS; RACEDO, J.

Omics Approaches for Sugarcane Crop Improvement

CRC Press

Año: 2022; p. 1 - 26

Modern sugarcane cultivars are characterized by high genetic complexitymaking traditional improvement extremely laborious, costly and time consuming.Several biotechnological tools applied at different stages of a classicalbreeding program can make the overall process more efficient. Exploration,conservation and utilization of genetic resources of sugarcane germplasm bankassisted by molecular markers allow to prevent possible erosion and to select acore collection maximizing allelic diversity. When new germplasm isincorporated, molecular techniques to detect systemic diseases duringquarantine and tissue culture to sanitize diseased imported materialsaccelerate and guarantee the success of the process. Likewise, accessionsgenotypic information is useful to design the crosses according to the goals ofthe program. Once the crosses have been made, hybridity tests based on molecularmarkers allow identifying true hybrids of sugarcane. At the following cloneselection stages, molecular markers linked to traits of interest are useful toincrease the genetic gain rate. Genomic selection is under development in orderto predict the genetic merit of clones more accurately by using next generationsequencing. Later, when a variety is going to be released to commercialcultivation, micropropagation techniques make it possible to provide producerswith healthy and true-to-type seed cane. Varieties obtained are the startermaterial for crop improvement through genetic engineering (genetictransformation or genome editing) in order to add traits of interest for thebreeding program. Biotechnological toolsapplied onto theconventional breeding scheme offer numerousseveraladvantages that should be used by breeders toincrease the efficiency of obtaining new outstanding varieties.[Revisor1]  [Revisor1]In summary, biotechnological tools applied to the conventional breedingscheme allow increasing the efficiency to obtain new outstanding varieties.