Evaluating the potential of sugarcane families by DTOPSIS

Abstract

Family selection has been adopted in sugarcane breeding programs as an indirect method of selection of superior clones in early stages of selection among seedling progenies. Generally breeders choose or select clones from the whole population or first select the most promising families and then select the best clones within these best families. The basis for family selection is not to produce superior families with commercial value but rather to identify families with a higher frequency of superior clones and neglect the poor families to improve breeding efficiency. Hence, method for identification of promising families with the maximum potential for producing economically viable genotypes would be of great interest and usefulness to the sugarcane breeders. The possibility of using the method of The Dynamic Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (DTOPSIS) was attempted to identify superior sugarcane families. Observations were recorded in 18 families and four standards on four traits: Number of millable canes, cane height, cane diameter and HR brix % from plant and ratoon crops in ground nursery, first clonal trial and second clonal trial. Comprehensive index (Ci ) calculated was used to test the distance of each family to the best family. Ci values were significantly correlated to the selection rate at the two stages indicating that the elite clones were selected from families with higher Ci values. The method can be used to determine the elite families to increase the selection efficiency by considering many traits simultaneously. Seedlings were evaluated in plant and ratoon, first clonal and second clonal stages from 2012-2016 at ICAR-SBI, Coimbatore. Among the families studied, the families with more NMC/clump were Co 0312 x Co 98010, Co 0312 x Co 0209, Co 0320 x Co 0209. The progenies of Co 10031 x Co 99006 had thick canes (3.21cm) followed by CoM 0265 x CoT 8201 ( 3.14 cm).The standard Co 99004 was the tallest with 271.25 cm. The method identified the ideal cross with 22.54 % brix, 13.34 NMC/ clump, 3.21cm cane thickness and plant height of 271.25 cm. The selection rate at stage 1 varied from 2.00-7.14 % with an overall selection rate of 4.95 %. The selection rate ranged from 0- 5.71 % at stage II with an overall selection of 2.89 %. Ci ranged from 0.1278 to 0.7558. Eleven families had higher Ci values than the standards. Four families Co 86032 x CoN 10072, Co 0312 x Co 98010, Co 0312 x Co 0209, Co 86011 x Co 94008 had clones advanced to final stage of selection. In the study the parameters Hence, the present study was undertaken with the objective of understanding the selection strategy, breeding value of parents and identification of superior families at early stages of selection.