Phenotypic diversity analysis in S. spontaneum poses some difficulties due to its rhizomatous growth, large plant size and need for special growing conditions due to a noxious weed classification in some countries. Due to these limitations very
little phenotypic diversity analysis was carried out in S. spontaneum germplasm (Aitken and McNeil 2010). In
the present study, 30 S. spontaneum accessions collected from northwestern region were grouped based on morphological
traits. Cluster analysis and dendrogram (Fig. 3) showed that whole collections were divided into six groups
(Table 4). The first cluster had single collection from Rajkot district of north Saurastra (IND 0-1460). It is the tallest
clone (175 cm) collected from a water logged swampy area. This clone may have genes for water logging tolerant
hence can be utilized for development of water logging tolerant sugarcane. The Cluster II had two clones viz., IND
07-1485 from South Gujarat and IND 07-1487 from middle Gujarat. These two zones are characterized by high well
distributed annual rainfall of more than 1,000 mm.