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 utilized 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.