High-yielding sugarcane variety developed at Karnal institute

Tribune News Service

Karnal, December 13

Scientists of the Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Regional Centre here, have developed a high-sugared and yielding sugarcane variety Co-15023.

The variety has been released for commercial cultivation in north west zone, comprising central and western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi by the Central Sub-Committee for Crop Standards Notification and Release of Variety in a meeting held last month.

Resistant to major diseases

Co-15023 is an extraordinary combination of high sugar and cane yield, which on cultivation on a large scale can start the crushing season in October, a month early. It is also resistant to major diseases like red rot and smut. — Dr Ravinder Kumar, team leader

The scientists claimed that the performance of the variety in the All-India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) trials and simultaneous evaluations at different factory locations, tested under the Institute Industry Interface programme by signing an MoU with various sugar mills, was extraordinary for juice sucrose content.

In the AICRP trials, it depicted an improvement to 9.12 per cent from 5.92 per cent of other standard variety during the eighth month. Besides, it improved to 7.93 per cent from 5.78 per cent during 10 months. It recorded a yield of 89.49 tonnes per hectare cane, 19.41 per cent juice sucrose and 14.93 per cent pol in cane (14.93-kg sugar in 100-kg sugarcane), the scientists claimed.

They also claimed that besides having the quality of high sugar, it was extra early maturing variety for the north western zone.

Farmers of the zone could take multiple ratoon crops and go for on time wheat sowing, which otherwise gets delayed due to late starting of sugar mills, said Dr SK Pandey, head of the Karnal centre.

Dr Bakshi Ram, director, Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, said the variety would increase the income of the farmers with high yield. “The variety will play a major role in the sustainable development of sugarcane and sugar sector of the country,” he added.