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Abstract
INTRODUCTION
In Egypt sugar consumption is now (800.000) tones more than production,but the gap could disappear in 2010/11 financial year if per capita consumption in Egypt remains static at the current level of 32.5kg (71.5lbs) a year MENA (2007). Sugarcane accounts for about 78 precent of total sugar production in Egypt. It is cultivated mainly in Upper Egypt where it is well adapted to the extreme summer heat. Total sugar cane area has been stable around 115.000 HA for the last three years.
The Egyption government policy aims to increase the sugar production, decrease the gab between sugar consumption and production, decrease importing sugar, saving hed currency and Reducing water consumption, because Egypt is one of the countries facing great challenges due to its limited in water resources represented mainly by its fixed share of the Nile water and its ariditly as a general characteristics. (Egyptian National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (ENCID), 1999).
To achive these aims, the Ministry of Agriculture put a long term plan to reclaime mor new lands. About 2000 feddan (840 HA) of new reclaimed desert land in Asswan governorate have been cultivated with sugarcane in May 1999. But the problem is sugarcane needs more water for irrigation and on the other hand, in new lands there is salinity problems and sugar cane is moderelty sensitive to salinity.
Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is a promising new crop has the possibility to replace sugarcane for syrup production and this will spare a large area of sugarcane preserved for this purpose,(Maareg et al.1993).
Sweet sorghum growing period (about 4 months compared with sugarcane (12-16 months), also cost of cultivation of sweet sorghum is 3 times lower than sugarcane, and sweet sorghum water requirement is 4000 m3 wich less than the sugarcane water requirement is 36000 m3/HA. The Ethanole production process from sweet sorghum is eco- friendly compared to that from molasses, ethanole burning quality is superior less sulphur than of sugarcane and high octane rating.
Sweet sorghum has been reported as moderately salt tolerant with a threshold level of a bout 6.8 dSm-1 and a slope in 16.0 percent, (Ludlow et al.1990). On the other hand, Sugarcane is moderately sensitive to salinity which lead to the decrease in crop yield. According to Maher and Schulz (2003).
Because of the classical methods of breeding are very slow to produce salt tolerant plants, mutations and cell selection could be used. Possible contributions to agriculture was the spontaneous or induced mutations which could be selected throught tissue culture methods reviewed by Nabors, (1985), Hanning and Nabors (1988); The techniques of plant cell culture faciliate the rapid production of variant cell lines via selection procedures, these variant cell lines are useful for research into the genetics and biochemistry of plant cells in biotechnology for the production of new plant varieties and secondary metabolites.