41 ELEVATED HYBRIDIZATION PLATFORMS: AN IMPROVED METHOD FOR SUGARCANE HYBRIDIZATION N.V. Nair*, P. Govindaraj 1 S. J. K. Annamalai 2 and Ravindra Naik 2 N.V. Nair*, P. Govindaraj 1 1 Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore S. J. K. Annamalai 2 and Ravindra Naik 2 2 Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Regional Centre, Coimbatore *email : vijay52in@rediffmail.com Introduction Hybridization is the most important activity in any crop improvement programme as the genetic variability generated through recombination forms the basis forthe selection of better variants. Sugarcane breeding is more than a century old and the current breeding programmes largely rely on bi- parental crosses involving parents with complementing traits. Every year hundreds of crosses are made using commercial cultivars, genetic stocks and other germplasm sources as parents for generating the required genetic variability. In India, sugarcane hybridization is centralized at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu State, as the optimum flowering and seed set is obtained only at this location. Every year, over 20 sugarcane research stations located in the country participate in the centralized hybridization program at the National Hybridization Garden (NHG), Coimbatore,and effect close to/nearly1000 crosses, polycrosses and selfs. Thirty to forty kg of fluff (seed) is subsequently dispatched to the participating centres where the seedlings are raised and evaluated through different clonal stages to identify superior, well adapted and location specific varieties. Hybridization techniques Sugarcane is a naturally cross pollinated crop and due to the bisexual nature of the flowerthere is no control over pollination under natural condition. Hence, isolation of the designated female inflorescences (arrow) to prevent pollen contamination followed by pollination using the pollenofthe preferred male parent is generally practiced to obtain the desired cross combinations. Hybridization techniques followed in different countries differ according to the local conditions and convenience. As perthe earlier practice in Java, the Abstract An elevated hybridization platform was designed and developed for facilitating field crosses in sugarcane. The platform consists of subunits of 13.2 m length each erected at two levelson‘H’ shaped tubular scaffold frames. Two such subunits areconnected to form one main unit which is placed in between two rows of sugarcane. The main units are interconnected to provide continuous mobility across the platform on a total planted area of 63.36 m 2 . The platforms are positioned in two vertical levels to reach sugarcane inflorescence at different levels for effecting crosses. The platforms are in use since 2007and its efficiency over conventional lantern method of crossing was compared and found to be time, labor and resourcesaving besides providing better efficiency to hybridization programme. Key words: Sugarcane, hybridization, elevated platforms, labor-saving Journal of Sugarcane Research (2013) 3(1) : 41-46 RESEARCH ARTICLE