Based on percent reduction for each parameter in 165 progenies, those progenies with 5 % reduction was rated as tolerant, those with 5–10 % reduction as moderately tolerant, 10–20 % reduction was rated as moderately sus- ceptible, those with 20–30 % reduction as susceptible and [30 % reduction was rated as highly susceptible. The proportion of progeny in each class followed a normal distribution (Fig. 2), showing that this could be an ideal population that can be immortalized, maintained and uti- lized for future research on drought resistance in sugarcane. The progenies with extreme high and low expression of specific characters served for identifying drought respon- sive candidate genes in sugarcane.