Abstract

Hybrid cane (Saccharum officinarum x S. spontaneum) is highly tolerant to drought, high tillering, short harvesting cycle, harvested several times, high dry matter content and good fiber source. The present study aimed to evaluate growth, yield and yield components of hybrid cane. The field experiment was conducted at Kamphaeng Phet province in 2020-2021. The experiment was arranged in RCBD with 4 replications. The treatment consisted of 10 clones of hybrid cane (1-124, 1-131, 1-144, 2-180, 2-200, 2-42, 3-20, 3-22, KU58-5-6 and KU58-5-7) and 2 check varieties (Biotech 2 and KK 3). Data collection consisted of growth, yield component, biomass yield and nutritional value such as moisture, dry matter, CP, ADF, NDF, ADL and ash. Hybrid cane was harvested at every 4 months. The results showed that KU58-5-6, KU58-5-7, clone 3-22, 2-42 and 2-200 had average plant height closing to Biotech 2 (The tallest plant height variety). Clone 3-20 produced the highest average tiller number (15.10 tillers/clump) resulting in the highest tiller/rai. Clone 3-20 and 3-22 had average leaf/stem ratio closing to KK 3. Clone 2-200 had high dry weight yield in both leaf and stem, and provided more total dry biomass yield than all clones/varieties, except clone 2-42 and 3-20. In case of nutritional value, clone 2-200 had dry matter content than Biotech 6, Biotech 7 and KK3. All clones had low CP in both leaf and stem. NDF content of leaf and stem of all clones were higher than standard level and moderate ADF content, while ADL content in leaf and stem were showed in length of 3.93-7.25 and 4.39-9.71%, respectively. All clones tended to have higher ash content in leaf than stem.