The sugarcane industry is large and economically important in southern China, where sugarcane is currently the second most important crop and its relative importance is expected to rise in the future. Sugarcane industries continue to rely heavily on development of new and more productive varieties to maintain industry viability in increasingly competitive world markets. Sugar industries have invested heavily in breeding programs in the past to maintain a steady flow of more productive varieties. However, parent clones within industry breeding programs around the world trace back to the same relatively small number of key ancestors.
This small sample of genetic diversity in breeding programs, combined with an awareness that there are many desirable traits in exotic sugarcane-related germplasm, has led to strong interest in introgression of new sources of germplasm in breeding programs in Australia and China. In China, large-scale collection of sugarcane-related germplasm from the wild, especially from southwest China, occurred during the 1980s and 1990s, and most of this material is now housed in collections. Chinese and Australian sugarcane breeders expect that many of these clones will contain individual traits and genes of commercial value if these could be identified and recombined in other agronomically suitable genetic backgrounds.
This project is providing more productive sugarcane varieties to growers and sugar industries in China and Australia by assessing genetic diversity in sugarcane germplasm collections and using wild germplasm to develop improved sugarcane clones.
The research team will use DNA markers to assess genetic diversity and relationships among clones in germplasm collections in China and Australia and establish their relationships with clones used in core breeding programs in China and Australia. They will then select a core sample of clones that will most effectively capture the most unique genetic variation in the large collections.
They will develop improved clones, derived from wild germplasm in China, that have potential breeding value as parents in core breeding programs. From these selected germplasm clones they will then identify the positive and negative genetic components through sample populations. They will especially search for clones which have a favourable expression of traits which contribute to high sucrose content, cane yield and drought tolerance. DNA marker assisted introgression will then be used to back-cross the favourable components into commercially elite parent clones, while at the same time eliminate the unfavourable components.
The team will also study the interaction between genotype and environment at sites in China and Australia to assess the relevance of field trial data obtained in China to Australian environments.
Links:
[1] http://www.aciar.gov.au/country/China
[2] http://www.aciar.gov.au/programarea/Crop Improvement and Management