A pot-plant trial was established in a shade house during January 1998. Transplants were produced from singled-budded setts cut from mature stalks of six commercialvarieties of sugarcane. The varieties, and their degree of resistance to E. saccharina, were N11 and N16 (susceptible),N17 and NCo376 (intermediate resistance), N12 and N21(resistant) (Anonymous, 2001a,b). One-month-old trans-plants of each variety were planted on 13 January 1998 into25-L PVC pots (five transplants per pot) containing riversand so that nutrient supply could be controlled exactly.