Sugarcane Breeding Programs: a Costly Payback Adventure

摘要

A program of new variety development will be essential in all industries where a mixed production of sugar, ethanol and bio-energy is contemplated. Many countries, without their own breeding programs, rely on the importation of varieties from neighbors or more remote countries that do have their own variety breeding programs. The new hybrids that are being released by the few remaining breeding programs are protected through a specific law from each country, where the local grower has to pay royalties for using the variety, just as for other seed propagated crops such as soybean, corn, sugar beet and cotton.