Section 2 - Sugar Research and Development Corporation

Emerging technologies
Key
Performance
Indicator
Enhanced approaches
for sugarcane genetic
improvement
Measure Technologies developed that
accelerate the delivery of
improved varieties for sugar
production and value-added
products.
More Crop per Drop
This project was initiated to determine the
potential of Australian sugarcane germplasm to
develop water use-effi cient and drought tolerant
commercial cultivars.
Water stress is the major constraint to
productivity in the Australian sugar industry
costing an estimated $260 million per annum.
About 40 per cent of the Australian sugarcane
production is rain-fed with or without
supplementary irrigation. Because of erratic
rainfall and the increasing cost and restrictions
on water use, effi cient use of available water is
an important priority in irrigated production
systems.
Field experiments were conducted for three
years under rain fed, fully irrigated and managed
drought conditions at three locations in northern
Queensland. The agronomic and cane yield
characteristics, fi bre, sugar and sugar quality
characteristics and physiological traits related to
drought tolerance were collected during the crop
growth period and at harvest.
Analysis of the data showed complex interactions
between type of stress, response of traits to
stress, trait effects on growth and yield and other
environmental parameters.
These traits are proving useful to characterise
clone behaviour under different stress
environments to identify desirable trait
combinations and genotypes (ideotypes) suitable
for different production conditions, which is
the focus of the second phase of this research
(BSS305).
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Extending SugarBooster SugarBooster technology is a recent
breakthrough with the potential to generate
sugarcane lines producing the sugar isomaltulose
as well as higher yields of sucrose and other
fermentable sugars.
If able to replicate this success in the fi eld,
these genetically modifi ed varieties will yield
more sugar, making farms more profi table
and effi cient, as well produce another valueadding
product.
The major output of the project is the fi rst
knowledge of the performance under fi eld
conditions of SI-transformed sugarcane lines.
Additional outputs are: methods developed for
effi cient gene transfer into diverse, smut-resistant
Australian sugarcane cultivars (submitted for
publication); fi rst development of trial designs
for effective early-stage selection of improved
transgenic sugarcane lines (in collaboration with
BSES); evidence that a workable proportion of
transgenic lines from current protocols can match
the recipient cultivar for cane yield after several
fi eld propagations to obtain quality planting
material. The technology has been licensed for
commercial use by CSR (Sucrogen) (UQ040).
SRDC Annual Report 2010–2011 55