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SUGARCANE@ [RATOONING] [SALINE SOIL] [WATER STRESS] [QUALITY] [SPECIFIC REGIONS] [RAINFED CONDITION] [SUSTAINABLE] [CANE SETT] [JUICE CANE]
SORGHUM@ [GRAIN PURPOSE] [DUAL PURPOSE] [GRAIN MOLD] [STRESS CONDITION]
LOCAL FIELD CROPS@ [LOCAL FIELD CROPS]
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Improvement of Sugarcane Production under Water Stress Conditions.

Project coordinator : Thongchai Tangpremsri

Thailand is one of the major sugar export countries. The amount of sugar production has increased every year. However, this increase has been due to the expansion of the sugarcane growing area. Most of this area is under rainfed conditions, which often makes sugarcane yields unpredictable. The major cause of the yield reduction in this area is drought. Therefore, this project was started in 1993, with the objectives to investigate the effects of soil moisture stress on cane growth and development. The project also includes a plant breeding programme. The use of the tissue culture technique for improving sugarcane varieties under water stress conditions was successfully conducted in the project.

Breeding

Breeding programme for drought resistance in sugarcane.

The tissue culture technique has been used in this programme since 1991. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was used in the tissue culture media at the level of 10-25 %. This resulted in a reduction of water availability in the media. At the first selection, 110 clones were selected as potentially tolerant clones. In 1995, 12 clones were evaluated in terms of water stress tolerance and yield performance under both normal and water stress conditions.

Agronomy

Changes of agronomic characters of 4 sugarcane varieties under water deficits during internode formation stage.

Four sugarcane varieties, U-Thong 1, U-Thong 2, K 84-200 and 90-1, were subjected to water deficits during the internode formation stage for 30 days. The results indicated that cane yield of all varieties were reduced significantly. The major characters to be affected by water stress were stalk length and internode length. There was, however no effect on stalk diameter and stalk number. U-Thong 1 and 90-1 were shown to be better varieties than U-Thong 2 and K 84-200 under these condition.