The Vitroplants Project of Estación Experimental Agroindustrial Obispo Colombres (EEAOC) began in 2001 and supplies high-quality “seed cane” (healthy, vigorous and with guaranteed genetic identity) to the farming sector. This is achieved with several biotechnological tools, including hydrothermotherapy, micropropagation and different molecular techniques
The book A guide to sugarcane diseases was published in 2000 by ISSCT and Cirad, with the objective of gathering practical and updated information in sugarcane pathology. During the last two decades, new diseases have developed and were described in several countries.
The sugarcane breeding program in Cuba evaluates new cultivars to determine their resistance to brown rust, smut, leaf scald, sugarcane mosaic, and red rot. In these trials, with high inoculum pressure, a set of control cultivars of known resistance are included to compare and assign a rating that describes the suitability of the new clone for commercial production.
Virus elimination via cryo- or osmo-therapy has only been recently reported for sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV). Cryotherapy offers the dual advantage of germplasm conservation and virus removal while osmotherapy (osmotic treatments without liquid nitrogen) is a suitable alternative treatment for those cultivars that do not recover well after cryo-treatment.
Under a changing climate, sugarcane smut (Sporisorium scitamineum) has emerged as a significant threat in Tucumán, Argentina, since 2020. The distribution and intensity of smut across Tucumán sugarcane fields was determined and alternative control strategies for the disease analyzed.
Systemic sugarcane diseases were silently introduced to new areas due to the lack of appropriate and specific detection methods. Two bacterial diseases are the focus of the Sugarcane Disease Detection Lab (SDDL) in Louisiana – ratoon stunt disease (RSD), caused by Leifsonia xyli subsp. xyli, and leaf scald (LS), caused by Xanthomonas albilineans.
Red rot, caused by Colletotrichum falcatum, is one of the most devastating fungal diseases of sugarcane occurring in Pakistan and is often referred to as “sugarcane cancer”. The pathogen, C. falcatum, shows significant variability, leading to the breakdown of resistance in many sugarcane varieties.
Over the past 15 years, red stripe (RS) has become a major plant disease in Argentina, causing severe infections in susceptible sugarcane varieties with up to 30% yield losses. Control relies on the development of tolerant sugarcane varieties to replace the susceptible ones.
Red stripe (RS) in sugarcane [Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae (Aaa)] is considered a non-systemic disease; however, understanding the colonization pattern of the pathogen is essential for proposing alternative management strategies in conjunction with the use of resistant sugarcane cultivars.
A study of the diseases and animal pests affecting sugarcane on the Dagoberto Rojas farm was carried out as part of the Comprehensive Development of Precision Agriculture at the Jesús Rabí Sugar Mill in Matanzas, Cuba, using data recorded by the Phytosanitary Service.