In Kenya sugarcane crop stands in the field for 18 months or more, and because of intense cultivation practices associated with the crop, new diseases appear to be setting in all the time. There is therefore a need to continuously evolve new varieties to combat several diseases. Since it is not possible to get combined resistance against all or most diseases in a breeding programme, there is a dire need to harness new techniques and methods to evolve new varieties against various diseases and to improve various economically important characters.