Click, hold and drag to your desired menu option. Release and click 'GO'. About this site Glossary of GT terms Gene technology sites Improving sugar quality Plant breeders have boosted the productivity of the Australian sugar industry by developing better sugar cane varieties. But efforts to increase sugar concentrations in the cane have been unsuccessful. About 85 per cent of the industry's production is exported as raw sugar, making it our second most valuable export crop after wheat.
Sugar mills pay farmers on the concentration of sugar in their cane.
Farmers would achieve higher profits if sugar concentrations could be increased. Breeders will cross wild sugar cane with domesticated varieties, then select high-sugar plants and analyse their genes. Another approach used is to list all active genes in the plant's cells. Researchers will compare the genes in plants with high sugar concentration with those in plants that have low sugar concentration. Genes that appear only in plants with high sugar concentration may be the ones scientists can use for increasing sugar concentration.