Sugarcane Breeding for salt affected soils of subtropical India

Sugarcane important commercial crop of India. Both saline and sodic soils also contribute significantly in affecting cane yield and sugar recovery. In view of this, Effort was made to screen 32 genotypes of sugarcane of diverse genetic background against soil salinity at Nain farm, Panipat. (CSSRI, Karnal) during 2015–16. The soil salinity of the experimental area varies greatly from 2.25 dSm⁻¹ to 29.04 dSm⁻¹ at different crop intervals. Under this experiment, 9 entries were planted under various levels of electrical conductivity. Based on the performance of these entries, an experiment was planted for further evaluation at ICAR-SBI-RC, Karnal under four salinity level of irrigation waters viz., Normal, 4 EC.^iw: 4 dSm⁻¹, EC._iw: 8 dSm⁻¹ and EC._iw: 12 dSm⁻¹ Five clones were identified as tolerant and six clones were moderately tolerant whereas Six genotypes were found highly sensitive clones. These tolerant and moderately tolerant clones may be utilized in breeding programme towards development of salinity tolerant varieties.