(i) The conduct of a ‘‘high CCS’’ breeding program based on a recurrent selection scheme with a relatively short generation interval, on which selection is weighted heavily on CCS with some,but limited, concurrent selection pressure on cane yield. This would follow some previous apparently successful examples of such a strategy.
(ii) Physiological investigation of characteristics of progeny arising from the above program to better understand the basis of improvements and limitations to higher sugar content in current cultivars. This would include investigating genetic correlations between sucrose content and cane yield to assess whether there are problematic trade-offs between assimilate partitioning and growth at high CCS levels.
(iii) Conducting basic research using parental clones and progeny currently under use and evaluation in breeding programs to provide precise estimates of the key genetic parameters of additive genetic variance, narrow sense heritability, and genetic correlations among traits, for cane yield,CCS, and other economically important traits.From these parameters and statistical theory,optimal selection indices for maximising rates of genetic gain for economic value for use in modern breeding programs may be determined.
(iv) Conducting studies in progeny populations derived from exotic germplasm, including QTL mapping in populations derived from backcrossing this germplasm into elite, high CCS,breeding program parents, to identify whether this approach could be used to identify and introgress new genes contributing to higher sucrose content in current parental material and cultivars.