36 Agrlciillural Research and Produciivity 



were not superior lo the Transparent variety in his fields, he 

 abandoned his project (Stevenson 1968). 



Other reports of seedling growth were made later, but it was not 

 until the 1887-88 cane-growing season, when the fertility of the 

 cane plant was rediscovered, that a basis for the deliberate use of 

 seedlings for producing new varieties existed. In the early part of 

 that crop year, Soltwedel, in the Proefstatien Oost Java POJ,' dem- 

 onstrated that the sugarcane plant could produce seedlings. Later 

 that same year Harrison and Bovell, in the newly established ex- 

 periment station in Barbados, British West Indies, independently 

 made the same discovery. The researchers at both stations recog- 

 nized that each individual seedling could be grown and allowed to 

 reproduce asexually, thus creating an entirely new variety having 

 the same genetic characteristics as the seedling. 



The inducement of flowering in the cane plant depends on 

 temperature and light control, thus the production of seedlings 

 was difficult. Only a few experiment stations, including the two 

 pioneer stations in Barbados and Java, were able to establish 

 breeding programs before 1900. The stations in Barbados, Java, 

 and British Guiana had produced new, commercially important 

 varieties by that date.^ The stations in Hawaii, Mauritius, and 

 Reunion produced commercial varieties shortly thereafter 

 (Manglesdorf 1946, 1953). The Indian station at Coimbatore did 

 not release its first variety until 1912. 



The earliest breeding programs were not systematic in the 

 sense that seedlings were produced from random fertilization of 

 parent varieties grown in proximity to one another. Parentage was 

 not identified. Procedures were later developed to identify parent- 

 age and to pursue more systematic cross-breeding procedures as 

 experiment stations gained experience with breeding programs.^ 



1 . The experiment station in Java, later to become the world's leading producer 

 of important varieties. 



2. Harrison had moved to Demerara, British Guiana, shortly after his discovery 

 of cane fertility in Barbados. 



3. Bovell, in 1900, pursued a breeding program of "selfing," i.e. inbreeding to 

 identify the characteristics of progeny of specific varieties to determine their value 

 as breeding stock. It was shortly after this that Shull and East in the United States 

 used the same principle to develop the "hybridization" of corn (Stevenson 1968). 



