Competative study of some new candidate sugarcane varieties in respect of cane yield and quality under agro-climatic conditions of Thatta

Abstract

During 2004-05 performance of nine promising sugarcane varieties obtained from different Sugarcane Research Institutes of Pakistan along with local check Thatta-10 was tested in National Uniform Varietal Yield Trial at NSCRI, farm Thatta. The data revealed that maximum average cane yield of 150, 131 and 130 t/ha was obtained from sugarcane varieties NSG-555, S97-US-102 and HoTh-326 respectively, which was followed by CP 89-1945, CP 87-1628 and LRK-2001 with average cane yield of 118, 112 and 101 t/ha respectively relative to check variety Thatta-10 that produced average cane yield of 71 t/ha. While, rest other varieties CP 82-1172, HoTh-127 and S97-SP-27 displayed intermediary results with average cane yield of 95, 90 and 87 t/ha a respectively. On the other hand, variety HoTh-300 showed lowest performance with minimum average cane yield of 66 t/ha. The month wise quality analysis data revealed that variety CP 80-1827 remained on top by producing highest mean CCS of 15.30% followed by CP 89-1945 and CP 82-1172 with mean CCS of 14.73 and 14.59% respectively against the check variety Thatta-10 that produced mean CCS of 14.49%. Moreover, the varieties CP 87-1628, HoTh-127 and NSG-55 showed more or less alike results by producing next higher mean CCS of 14.17, 14.15 and 14.11% respectively. In contrast, variety LRK-2001 exhibited poorer performance with lowest mean CCS of 11.87%. The data regarding borer infestation percentage revealed that all the varieties remained less affected by borers with damage ranging from 1.44 to 7.43%.