Rapid and Non-Destructive Methodology for Measuring Canopy Coverage at an Early Stage and Its Correlation with Physiological and Morphological Traits and Yield in Sugarcane

Screening for elite sugarcane genotypes for canopy cover in a rapid and non-destructive way is important to accelerate varietal/clonal selection, and little information is available regarding canopy cover and leaf production, leaf area, biomass production, and cane yield in sugarcane crop. In the present investigation, the digital images of sugarcane crop by using Canopeo software was assessed for their correlation with the physiological and morphological parameters and cane yield production. The results revealed that among the studied parameters, canopy coverage has shown a significantly better correlation with the plant height (0.581 **), leaf length (0.853 **), leaf width (0.587 **), and leaf area (0.770 **) in commercial sugarcane clones. Two-way cluster analysis has led to the identification of Co 0238, Co 86249, Co 10026, Co 99004, Co 94008, and Co 95020 with better physiological traits for higher sugarcane yield under changing climate. Additionally, in another field experiment with pre-breeding, germplasm, and interspecific hybrid sugarcane clones, the canopy coverage showed a significantly better correlation with germination, shoot count, leaf weight, leaf area index, and plant height, and finally with biomass ( r = 0.612 **) and cane yield ( r = 0.458 **). It has been found that the plant height, total dry matter (TDM), and leaf area index (LAI) had significant correlation with the cane yield, and the canopy cover data from digital images act as a surrogate for these traits, and further it has been observed that CC had better correlation with cane yield compared to the other physiological traits viz., SPAD, total chlorophyll (TC), and canopy temperature (CT) under ambient conditions. Light interception determined using a line quantum sensor had a significant positive correlation ( r = 0.764 **) with canopy coverage, signifying the importance of determining the latter in a non-destructive way in a rapid manner and low cost.