Recent Perspectives towards Enhancing Drought Tolerance in Sugarcane

By : Gulzar S Sanghera , Arvind Kumar

Page No: 23-35

Abstract
Sugarcane being a C4 crop produces a large amount of biomass is a water-loving crop, its requirements for water and fertilizers are equally very high. Water is already a scarce commodity in many parts of the world and predicted climate changes will aggravate the situation in future. Due to glycophytic nature of this crop, drought conditions interfere with sugar production by affecting growth rate, yield of the cane, juices of lower sucrose contents and the sucrose content of the stalk. Thus, drought may reduce sugarcane yield up to 50% or even more being a multi-dimensional stress, it causes various physiological and biochemical effects on plants. Enhancing the tolerance of this crop to abiotic stresses such as drought has therefore proved to be somewhat elusive in terms of plant breeding. Researchers are looking for different agronomic and physiological traits, which could lead to adaptation to these conditions or be correlated to drought tolerance. This article is an attempt to put emphasis on some potential strategies like physiological, biochemical and biotechnological that could be used in breeding for development of superior sugarcane varieties that improve crop productivity in water stress environments.

Authors :
Gulzar S Sanghera : PAU, Regional Research Station, Kapurthala, 144601, India
Arvind Kumar : UP Council of Sugarcane Research, Shahjahanpur, 242001, UP, India.