ABSTRACT
Sugarcane is an important commercial crop catering to the world's food, fuel, and fibre needs, apart from being the source of many other value-added products. Sugar, as the primary product, still assumes much importance, even now when we have ample diversification options. Sugarcane improvement dates back to the early attempts of nobilization; this period was followed by improved varieties for economically important traits. We have reached a stage where the conventional techniques of hybridization and selection are being complemented by the cutting-edge technologies, including the “omics.” The sugarcane improvement programmes all over the world still emphasize improving the sugar-accumulation potential of the varieties, along with the other traits, like stress resistance/tolerance in the newly developed varieties. The recent reports elucidating the sequence of a reference genome in this crop and other attempts made to sequence the genomes of species clones and varieties have created opportunities to effectively use the sequence information in the practical sugarcane improvement programmes. This review examines the progress of sugarcane improvement strategies from the conventional hybridization and selection to the application of molecular and genomic approaches, leading to improvement in sugar accumulation potential in the newly developed varieties in this crop.
