Sugarcane compositional analysis to enable food safety assessment of modified varieties

Abstract

An important component of demonstrating that the products of GM sugarcane varieties are substantially equivalent to conventional varieties is whether the nutritional composition falls within the range of compositions that are currently found in production. For sugarcane, the food safety assessment will focus on the stalk, as the plant part that provides the food product, and the nutritional components that will be assessed are the proximates (comprising moisture content, crude fibre, protein, fat, ash and N-free extractives) and the soluble sugars. For feed purposes, information on the proportions of neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) will also be required. Although some components such as sugars are routinely measured in sugarcane stalks, there was a lack of information on most of the nutritional components. The aim of this project was to determine the range of nutritional compositions found in Australian sugarcane varieties under normal agronomic practices