Sucrose content is one of the most important criteria in varietal selection. A modification of the direct analysis of cane (DAC) methodology, known as CENIAD, is presented. CENIAD is based on the sampling in the field of small pieces of the upper, intermediate and lower thirds of stalks. A good linear correlation coefficient (r= 0.98) between pol% cane reported by CENIAD and the respective values obtained by DAC of whole stalks was obtained. CENIAD has a great potential for estimating pol% cane in varietal selection. CENIAD is quick
