An understanding of the Saccharum genome and insight into its evolution and organisation is necessary for making informed decisions in breeding, germplasm introgression and biotechnology. Over the past 80 years, much has been learned about the sugarcane genome from cytological studies, breeding experiments, chemotaxic markers, and more recently from molecular diversity studies, DNA mapping, and molecular cytogenetics. In addition, detailed DNA mapping and sequencing studies in other plants can provide further clues to genome organisation in sugarcane. In the first part of this report, information from published sources is reviewed to produce a synthesis of current knowledge regarding the Saccharum genome. It is clear that there are important gaps that require filling before a complete picture of the genome organisation is obtained. In the second part of this report, the information is used to re-assess some of the conceptual structures used in sugarcane breeding and biotechnology.