Early evaluation of sugarcane for quality improvement as an effective approach for varietal selection in subtropical climate

A study was conducted during 1994-96 to evaluate 16 early maturing high sug ar genotypes in plant crops for 3 quality traits - brix, purity and sugar c ontent at 4 sampling dates in October, November, December and January to as sess the genetic variances, heritability, genetic advance over the mean, co rrelation coefficient among the characters at each sampling date and repeat ability of quality traits between sampling time and maturity. Results showe d that the genetic variances for these traits were largest at the early mat urity stage (October). The broad sense heritability, genetic advance over t he mean and correlation between 3 sucrose related traits were also highest at tarry maturity stage (October) and lowest at late maturity stage (Januar y/February). Repeatability of quality traits between sampling time and matu rity was smallest but highly significant at early maturity stage and highes t at the late maturity stage. The study indicates that selection for the su crose related traits will have higher expected genetic gains at the early m aturity stage than selection done at other maturity stages. Genotypic diffe rences between clones were more pronounced during this(October) for quality traits and this is very important and critical time for selection of perio d desirable early maturing high sugar genotypes in Uttar Pradesh which lies in the subtropical part of India.