The Saccharum sensu stricto (s.s) genus consists of three recognised species: S. spontaneum, S. officinarum and S. robustum, and three subspecies: S. sinense, S. barberi and S. edule. Currently, limited knowledge is available about the precise descent of these species from one another. Modern sugarcane arose through the ‘Nobilization’ process, and it is believed that S. officinarum and S. spont...

Sugarcane is a major crop used for food and bioenergy production. Modern cultivars are hybrids derived from crosses between Saccharum officinarum and Saccharum spontaneum. Hybrid cultivars combine favorable characteristics from ancestral species and contain a genome that is highly polyploid and aneuploid, containing 100-130 chromosomes. These complex genomes represent a huge challenge for molec...

Increasing sugar productivity is the main concern of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) breeding programs. The complexity and size of the sugarcane genome is a major limitation in genetic improvement. Characterization of sugarcane wild germplasm provides essential information on genetic diversity that breeders utilize for crop improvement. The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility ...

Target region amplification polymorphism (TRAP) is a fairly new PCR-based molecular marker technique which uses gene-based information for primer design. The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility of TRAP markers for assessing genetic diversity and interrelationships in sugarcane germplasm collections. Thirty genotypes from the genera Saccharum, Miscanthus, and Erianthus were used ...

Sugarcane, Saccharum officinarum L., is one of the most economically important crop of Thailand. It is the main source of sucrose, and is used in sugar and alcohol production. Insect pest complex is the most important limiting factor in sugarcane production. Among the sugarcane insect pest complexes, the sugarcane moth borers complex is considered most important. Chilo infuscatellus Snellen, Ch...

The genera Erianthus and Miscanthus, both members of the Saccharum complex, are of interest as potential resources for sugarcane improvement and as bioenergy crops. Recent studies have mainly focused on the conservation and use of wild accessions of these genera as breeding materials. However, the sequence data are limited, which hampers the studies of phylogenetic relationships, population str...

Commercial sugarcane hybrid cultivars currently in production are high-yielding, disease-resistant, millable canes and are the result of years of breeding work. In Hawaii, these commercial hybrids are quite distinct from many Saccharum officinarum canes still in existence that were brought to the islands and cultivated by the native Polynesians. The actual genetic relationships among the native...

In 1987, J. Daniels and B. T. Roach published an exhaustive multidisciplinary review of evidence permitting the domestication and the early evolution of sugarcane to be traced. We try here to synthesize the new data that have been produced since, and their contribution to the understanding of the global picture. It is now highly probable that sugarcane evolved from a specific lineage restricted...

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) and other members of Saccharum spp. are attractive biofuel feedstocks. One of the two World Collections of Sugarcane and Related Grasses (WCSRG) is in Miami, FL. This WCSRG has 1002 accessions, presumably with valuable alleles for biomass, other important agronomic traits, and stress resistance. However, the WCSRG has not been fully exploited by breeders due to its la...

DNA profiles of 40 sugarcane genotypes were constructed with 30 RAPD markers. Sugarcane genotypes of both Saccharum officinarum and S. barberi were included in this study. Multiple alleles were detected from each RAPD; there was a high level of polymorphism. On average, 7.93 alleles were produced per primer, giving a total of 238 alleles. The genetic distances between these genotypes were asses...