Breeding of Sugarcane - Industrial Crops: Breeding for BioEnergy and Bioproducts - page 29

Chapter 2
Breeding of Sugarcane
Lizz Kezzy de Morais, Marcelo Sfeir de Aguiar, Paulo de Albuquerque
e Silva, Tassiano Maxuell Marinho C ˆ mara, Danilo Eduardo Cursi,
Ant ˆ nio Ribeiro Fernandes J ´ nior, Roberto Giacomini Chapola,
Monalisa Sampaio Carneiro, and Jo ˜ o Carlos Bespalhok Filho
Abstract Sugarcane is the main source for sugar production and the most impor-
tant crop for energy production, as well as for byproducts like ethanol and fibers in
the world. With a complex genome, the plant has its species from crosses between
species of the genus Saccharum , which were the basis for sugarcane breeding
programs worldwide. The production of sugarcane has increased worldwide due
to breeding programs that have developed more productive clones for specific uses
and adapted to different climatic conditions. The future objective of breeding
programs is to develop sugarcane with high productivity, high sucrose content,
drought tolerance, and high production of ethanol and biomass, i.e., plants with
high fiber content and with cell walls easily broken to favor the production of
ethanol from bagasse, efficient plants with low nitrogen fertilizer use, and others,
and consequently to reduce environmental impacts. Currently, the demand for
products derived from sugarcane is consistently increasing; the ethanol byproduct
has been pointed out as one of the important sources to feed the demand for
renewable energy in fossil and nonrenewable fuel substitution programs in different
countries around the world. This chapter describes the genetic improvement of
sugarcane and its current goals.