Biochemical Profiling of Source and Sink Tissues at Different Growth Stages of Early and Late Maturing Varieties of Sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids)

Sugarcane being C4 crop exhibits distinct source-sink signaling pathway that helps in storing remarkably high amount of sucrose in its sink tissues that makes it a highly remunerable crop worldwide. In the present study sugar content was profiled in both source and sink tissues of early (CoJ64) and late (BO91) maturing sugarcane varieties. At early growth stage (i.e. at 210 DAP) sink tissues of both varieties exhibited higher reducing sugar and low sucrose content while in source tissues both sucrose and reducing sugar content was observed high, depicted lower sink demand for sucrose. With maturity, when sink demand for sucrose storage increased, rise in sucrose content was seen in sink tissues, whereas in source tissues gradual decrease in sucrose and reducing sugar content was observed. Accumulation of sucrose was found much higher in CoJ64 than those in BO91. In CoJ64 maximum sucrose content (64.2%) was seen at 330 DAP while in BO91 it was 41.8% at 390 DAP. At this stage, source tissues too exhibited higher sucrose and reducing sugar content. Thus sucrose synthesis in source tissues and its transportation to the sink tissues is primarily governed by the sink demand.