Visacane, a disease-free guarantee for exchanging sugarcane varieties

New sugarcane varieties largely help to improve farming systems. To that end, CIRAD supplies its partners with germplasm for varietal improvement purposes, or new high-yielding varieties for industrial crops. However, as sugarcane is multiplied by cuttings, there are major risks of propagating pathogens and pests. Visacane, CIRAD's sugarcane quarantine unit, proposes a comprehensive service guaranteeing the disease-free status of the planting material it supplies, and the respect of plant breeders' intellectual property rights. Visacane is located at CIRAD in Montpellier (France), outside any sugarcane production zone, and is part of a plant pathology research unit. Each year, Visacane imports around a hundred sugarcane varieties from different producing countries. Planting material remains under observation for at least two years in a quarantine glasshouse, thereby guaranteeing that the observations are reliable. Depending on the geographical origin of the sugarcane varieties, detection tests are performed for the following diseases: mosaic, streak mosaic, yellow leaf, Fiji disease, streak, red leaf mottle, Ramu stunt, leaf scald, ratoon stunting disease, white leaf and grassy shoot. Visacane proposes around a hundred of disease-free varieties per year to different CIRAD partners worldwide. Varieties are disseminated in respect of property rights and CIRAD offers contracts suited to each situation. (Résumé d'auteur