Sugarcane grows bigger with vinasse fertilizer but becomes less sweet
Monico AC, Alves AB, Alves MVS, Farias WM, Pimenta LPS
Soil Health
Sugarcane fields fertilized with fermentation waste outgrow conventional plots by a third, yet the cane turns out measurably less sweet, showing that the same soil trick that boosts a plant's size can quietly redirect what it stores inside.
Vinasse is the liquid leftover after fermenting sugarcane into ethanol, and farmers often pour it back onto fields as a fertilizer. This study found that doing so made sugarcane plants grow much bigger and produce more tons of cane per acre. The catch: the plants put their energy into growing leaves and stalks instead of filling up with sugar, so the harvested cane had noticeably less sucrose and sweetness than cane grown without vinasse.
Key Findings
Vinasse-treated plots yielded 101.69 tonnes of cane per hectare versus 77.03 in controls, a 32% increase in biomass.
Sucrose content dropped sharply under vinasse: 16.06% vs. 20.60% in controls, with total reducing sugars falling from 42.31% to 25.73%.
Vinasse raised soil pH from 5.33-5.88 to 6.26-6.73 and boosted potassium nearly fourfold (5.54 vs. 1.46 mmol/dm³), driving dynamic changes in nitrogen-fixing and phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria over time.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Applying vinasse (a byproduct of sugar ethanol production) to sugarcane fields boosted plant growth and yield by 32%, but caused the plants to store less sucrose, reducing the industrial quality of the crop. The trade-off reveals that vinasse shifts how sugarcane allocates carbon: toward building more plant tissue rather than accumulating sugar.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Vinasse fertigation modifies soil-microbiota-plant interactions and metabolism in sugarcane.
Vinasse fertigation is widely used in sugarcane systems to recycle nutrients and organic residues, yet its effects on soil-microbiota-plant interactions under field conditions remain insufficiently...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Gene editing removes 97% of celiac-triggering proteins from bread wheat
It could mean that people with celiac disease — roughly 1 in 100 worldwide — may one day safely eat bread made from real wheat, without sacrificing the taste...
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, perennial grass that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–7 m tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. Sugarcanes belong to the grass family, Poaceae, an economically impor...