Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is a significant agricultural commodity, contributing approximately 75% of granulated sugar worldwide. In 2022, a decline in productivity occurred compared to 2019 and 2020. This prompted the development of a breeding program aimed to determine the optimum induction concentration of PEG-6000, identify sugarcane cultivars tolerant to drought stress, and analyze commercial sugarcane cultivars through molecular characterization of the P5CS gene. The research transpired at the PT Gunung Madu Plantations (PT GMP), Lampung, Indonesia. Three commercial cultivars, namely, GMP-3, PSJT-941, and GP-11, served as samples in this study. According to the analysis of variance, the results showed the optimum concentration for inducing drought stress was 20% with a treatment duration of five weeks on an in vitro culture. For the molecular scale using sugarcane genotypes in the greenhouse, the sugarcane cultivars with the potential for tolerance to drought stress were PSJT-941, GMP-3, and GP-11, respectively, as supported by sequencing results.
Sugarcane (S. officinarum L.), drought stress, genotypes, greenhouse conditions, in vitro culture, molecular markers, PEG-6000
In sugarcane (S. officinarum L.), the morphological observations, carried out at in vitro condition, showed the optimal concentration of PEG-6000 at 20% while at greenhouse condition, obtaining narrow leaf width characteristics for cultivars GMP-3 and PSJT-941, with the cultivar GP-11 owning the wide leaves. Molecular markers identified for the three cultivars ran through sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, shared a close relationship with the research sample from Bogor, Indonesia.