Dus Testing

Sugarcane Breeding Institute has been designated as a National DUS (Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability) centre for Sugarcane by the Protection of Plant Varieties Farmers Rights Authority (PVP). The institute has three centres for DUS testing of sugarcane varieties. The facilities for DUS testing were developed at Coimbatore and Agali (SBI Research Centre, Agali) for tropical sugarcane varieties and at Karnal (SBI Regional Centre, Karnal) for sub-tropical varieties.The reference and example varieties of sugarcane for DUS testing are being maintained and characterized at these centres. National Test Guidelines for DUS Testing of sugarcane have also been developed and notified by this Institute.

DUS Test for Tropical Sugarcane Varieties

Consequent to the enactment of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Right Act-2001, maintenance of reference varieties of sugarcane and testing of new sugarcane varieties for DUS criteria become a mandatory and regular activity. The PPV Authority, New Delhi has recognised the ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Research Centre, Agali as Co-Nodal Centre DUS test of Tropical Sugarcane varieties. The Authority is funding for a research project entitled DUS Test for Sugarcane. Under this project, a total of 180 released sugarcane varieties for the Tropical States of India were collected from the originating research institutions and are being maintained as Tropical State sugarcane reference collections. The reference varieties were characterized for 27 morpho-metric traits as per the guidelines issued by the PPV. A catalogue of reference collection of sugarcane (including subtropical reference varieties) was brought out during 2011. During 2015-16 cane planting season, two Farmers 2019 varieties (FV) namely Dhyneshwar 16 and Shiddhgiri 123 and three new candidate varieties namely (Co 0403, Co 06027, Co 6030) were received for DUS test. These clones were planted in field during March 2015 for ascertaining their DUS criteria.