Timing water and fertilizer cutoffs boosts sugarcane sweetness
Crop Improvement
Anyone who has grown tomatoes or peppers knows that cutting back water at the right moment before harvest concentrates flavor, and this study shows the same trick works at industrial scale to make sugarcane sweeter without adding more fertilizer.
Sugarcane farmers have to decide exactly when to stop watering and when to give the last bit of fertilizer before harvest, and this study tested different timings to see which made the sweetest, biggest crop. Turns out cutting off irrigation too early or too late both hurt sweetness, and the same was true for fertilizer: the middle timing (early July for fertilizer, mid-October for water) won out. It's a reminder that for many crops, when you stop feeding and watering a plant matters as much as how much you give it.
Key Findings
Cane yield rose 17% and sugar yield rose about 15% when irrigation was cut off on October 21 versus September 20, but recoverable sugar percentage dropped at both the earliest (Sept 20) and latest (Oct 21) cutoff dates.
Applying the final nitrogen dose on July 20 increased cane yield by 20% compared to June 19, but the highest recoverable sugar percentage (10.75%) came from the intermediate July 5 application.
The best combination for sweetness was July 5 nitrogen application paired with either October 1 or October 11 irrigation cutoff, both reaching 11.3% recoverable sugar.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A field study in Iran found that when sugar farmers cut off irrigation and apply the last dose of nitrogen fertilizer during sugarcane's ripening stage has a big effect on both how much cane grows and how sweet it ends up. Cutting off water around October 11 and applying nitrogen in early July produced the sweetest, highest-yielding cane.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Investigation of the last nitrogen application timing and irrigation cut-off on the ripening of sugarcane IRC99-02 variety at the south of Khuzestan
IntroductionSugarcane is a major crop grown in tropical and subtropical regions and is used for the production of sugar, renewable products, biomaterials, and ethanol. The timing of the final nitro...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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