MORPHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY FOR SUGARCANE EARLY SELECTION TO DROUGHT TOLERANCE

Abstract

In Egyptian sugarcane breeding program, a pot experiment was carried out during 2019 season at Agricultural Research Station, Giza Governorate (latitude 26o 33′ N and longitude 31o 12′ E), Egypt, to evaluate twenty sugarcane clones, compared with the cultivated variety GT.54-9, under three irrigation water levels IWL (100, 80 and 60% of IWL). The traits FW of the shoot and root, root: shoot ratio, LAI, LAR, Chla, Chlb, Chla: Chlb ratio, carotenoids and proline were assessed. From this study clones 17 had height shoot fresh weight under water stress condition, as same as, clones 1, 18 and 19 had great behavior under water stress. In addition to most of sugarcane tested clones were not affected by increase the degree of water stress from 100 to 80% of IWL. The LAI, Chl.a and Chl.b traits showed the high correlation with shoot fresh weight, whereas, proline had strong relationships with root fresh weight under sugarcane drought stress.