Discussions regarding the use of sugarcane residues
(2/2/02)
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Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002
From: Winfried Scheewe
To: MULCH-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Experiences with use of sugarcane residues (trash farming)Dear colleagues,
In behalf of a group of NGOs supporting agrarian reform beneficiaries on the island of Negros in the Philippines, I would like to solicit reports on experiences and researches on the use of sugarcane trash (plant residues).
The common practice here is to burn the crop residues. More and more people realize that there is a need to make use of the organic matter to rehabilitate soils after decades of inappropriate practices. Since some years now, NGOs as well as some other groups are promoting and practicing the use of the trash as mulch in sugarcane production. However, so far experiences are limited.
In addition, there is an increasing pressure to reduce production costs and to diversify cane farms since starting 2004 the sugar sector in the Philippines will no longer enjoy a protected market, i.e. the world market price will determine the domestic sugar price. It is expected that the price will be significantly lower.
The practice of mulching (trash farming) creates some new problems and triggers several questions. In several cases, farmers have discontinued the practice because of some difficulties. Overall, there is a lack of long-term experiences. Thus, we would like to learn from your experiences. Here are our questions:
- How is the mulch distributed? (Uniformly over the whole field (full trash) or in alternate rows)
- How is good ratooning assured?
- To what extend can traditional cultivation practices like hilling up and off-baring be continued? Or do such practices become unnecessary altogether?
- Are there experiences, that the mulch encouraged pests like white grub and rats? If yes, how were the problems solved?
- How can mulching and intercropping be combined?
- What are the observations concerning soil fertility and yield.
- How can the use of mulch and the replanting of sugarcane be combined? (It appears that we lack know-how for this. Most farmers using the trash would still tend to clear the field before replanting.)
- Are special tools used? We welcome reports on actual experiences as well as results of researches done in this field. Looking forward to your responses.
Sincerely,
Winfried Scheewe
Surigao del Sur, Philippines
______________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002
From: Johannes Paul
Subject: Re: Experiences with use of sugarcane residues (trash farming)
To: MULCH-L@cornell.eduLieber Winfried Scheewe,
Wollte mich schon so lange! Gemeldet haben, aber Bais haelt mich voll in Beschlag. Bis Ende April volles Programm und ich renne i. w.nur Terminen, Veranstaltungen und Schriftkram hinterher. Aber unabhaengig davon arbeiten wir natuerlich hier fleissig an der trash verwertung. Unsere Erfahrungen mit mulching sind gering. Einige Farmer lassen zwar bereits trash auf den Feldern liegen, aber nicht bei Neupflanzung. Die wenigenmit denen ich sprach berichten, dass zum einen Rattenpopulationen zunehmen, dass aber auch der trash spaeter noch bei anderen Feldarbeiten stoert und deshalb einfaches mulchen kaum erfolgreich propagiert werden kann. Ein weiterer Ansatz waere trash nach der Ernte mittels eines mobilen Schredders zu zerkleinern, so dass organic matter direkt in den Boden eingepfluegt werden kann. Dazu moechten wir einen test vorbereiten (1 ha Versuchsflaeche) um Kosten, Zeit, Mengenaspekt etc. zu erfassen. Ich hoffe, dass wir dies noch in der laufenden Saison schaffen, Hauptschwierigkeit wird die Beschaffung des mobilen Schredders sein !
Ansonsten arbeiten wir weiter am Organic Recycling von trash, a) als Frischfutter, b) als Silage (beide getestet fuer cattle) und c) zur Kompostherstellung. Diese tests laufen alle positiv. Hauptaspekt dazu wird sein, ob diese Methoden einen wirtschaftlich interessanten Anreiz bieten koennen, so dass ansaessige Farmer dies als Nebenproduktion nutzen koennen.
Ich hoffe Sie irgendwann mal in Bais begruessen zu koennen !
Ein herzlichen Gruss
Johannes Paul
______________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002
To: MULCH-L@cornell.edu
From: Erick Fernandes
Subject: Re: Experiences with use of sugarcane residues (trash farming)Reply
Thank you for your message. Below are several sources with info (in English!!) on sugarcane trash management . Because many of our list members have poor and expensive access to the web, I have copied relevant portions of the documents or abstracts to help people decide whether to call up the entire article. Each "abstract" is followed by the source URL where you can access the original.
Is the following ILEIA piece about the NGO's work on the Island of Negros?
Best wishes,
Erick Fernandes
(Cornell University)From sugarcane monoculture to agro-ecological village - Modified sugar production The traditional form of cane production in Negros has led to serious environmental degradation. Sugarcane fields are frequent-ly burned before or after harvest, resulting in reduced soil fertility. Between the early 1970s and 1988, soil organic matter declined by 26% in one of the main cane growing regions of Negros. Reduced soil fertility has led to lower cane yields, and consequently, higher application rates of fertilisers. Current estimates of sugarcane fertilisation levels in the Philippines are 209 kg N / ha, 55 kg P 2 0 5 /ha, and 74 kg K 2 0 / ha per year. Additionally, cane production in upland areas causes erosion, resulting in the siltation of water bodies. Ground water has also been contaminated by the high application rates of nitrogen fertiliser and persistent herbicides such as simazine. Trash burning has reduced biodiversity and is leading to respiratory ailments, eye dis-ease and increased incidence of cancer among the people. The alternative practice of pre and post harvest trash (crop residue) cane farming is beginning to be implemented in the Flora are an increased risk of fire and higher labour costs. Cane trash is usually piled in alternate rows to minimise fire risks and enable cultivation between every other row. Labour costs of trash farming are off-set by reduced input costs and increased cane productivity. Currently, average yields in the community are about 70 tonnes / ha." http://www.ileia.org/2/16-4/22-23.PDF
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Info related to some of your questions:
Trash management and decomposition
(1) The effect of various calcium amendments applied to sugarcane trash
Calcium amendments such as lime and gypsum are commonly used to ameliorate soil acidity and sodicity. The effect of these and other amendments on the decomposition of trash (sugarcane crop residues after harvest) was investigated on a range of sugar industry soils. Data from glasshouse pot experiments conducted on five different soil types indicated that certain amendments applied to the surface of sugarcane trash had a significant effect on trash decomposition. Relative to unamended trash, the application of mill mud (a by-product from the sugar milling process) most successfully enhanced the rate of trash decomposition. Of the other amendments considered, significant differences in trash decomposition were also obtained when lime (pure CaCO3 at 3 tonnes ha-1), a combination of lime and gypsum (1.5 and 2.0 tonnes ha-1), potassium hydroxide (1.7 tonnes ha-1) and urea (160 kg ha-1) were applied to the surface of the sugarcane trash. Soil and amendment type had a significant interactive effect on soil pH. http://www.regional.org.au/au/asa/2001/3/b/wood.htm
(2) Burning or Trash-blanketing: the consequences for soil carbon and nitrogen
Will soil organic matter and nutrient levels increase under Green Cane Trash Blanket (GCTB)? In order to help answer this question, indicators of short- and long-term soil C and N cycling were compared in burnt and GCTB systems in field experiments in Tully, Mackay, and Harwood (NSW).
Under GCTB, trash containing 7-12 t dry matter/ha, 3000-5000 kg C/ha, and 30-60 kg N/ha was deposited on the soil surface at harvest. Most of the dry matter (>85%) was decomposed during the subsequent 12 months. In the oldest experiments, 3-6 years of GCTB increased total N, organic C and microbial biomass C in the top 5 cm of soil. In the youngest experiments, 1-2 years of GCTB had no effect on total or microbial C and N levels. Microbial respiration was greater under GCTB, but concomitant net mineralisation of N was not, due to greater immobilisation of N in GCTB than in burnt soils.
The effect of GCTB on soil properties increased with increasing cumulative returns of C and N over the years. It is expected that soil C and N will increase in soils under GCTB until a new equilibrium level is reached. The increases in total C and N and time to equilibrium will be highly dependent on the rate of trash decomposition and the ability of the soil to retain N. Estimates based on results of the field experiments suggest that soil C and N could increase by 3-25%, and that it could take 8-40 years to reach the new equilibrium. When this equilibrium is attained, mineralisation of trash-derived soil N will be at its maximum, and will be equal to the amount of N being returned annually (commonly 40-80 kg N/ha). As total soil N the GCTB system approaches the new equilibrium level, there may be potential for reducing fertiliser N inputs (by as much as 25%, assuming the recommended fertiliser rates are being used).
http://www-sugar.jcu.edu.au/news/news/008_31_05_00.html
(3) "Managing Combine Residue
About 85 percent of the sugarcane acreage in Louisiana is harvested with combine harvesters. Much of this cane is harvested green chopped, which results in a trash (residue) blanket on the soil surface that can reduce sugar yields from 500 to 1,000 pounds per acre for the following crop if it is not removed or burned. However, removing the residue blanket from the row tops and placing it in the furrow can cause cultivation problems the following spring.
Many producers burn the trash blanket after harvest, resulting in air quality problems. Burning the sugarcane residue also results in loss of nitrogen and organic matter that could improve soil fertility and soil manageability if the trash blanket were not destroyed.
The sugarcane combine residue blanket is at present more of a liability than an asset. Research in progress at the Iberia Research Station seeks to determine if spraying the combine residue with nitrogen-stabilized urea (containing a urease and nitrification inhibitor) can convert the trash blanket into organic fertilizer, which could increase soil fertility and manageability. At this time, research results are too premature to make a recommendation."
http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/Communications/LouisianaAgriculture/agmag/44_4_articles/fert ility.asp
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Cane Trash and Intercropping
(1) 100 years of sugarcane research in India "Inter-croping and interrow spacing To improve the economics of sugarcane crop ,intercropping technology was developed in North India which helps in growing intercrop summer moong ,mash,mentha in spring cane and wheat ,potatoes ,brassica rabi oil seed crops ,toria ,raya,gobhi sarson, successfully ;these inter crops fetching additional income to the farmers ,in addition to that from sugarcane.Experiments conducted at PAUsugarcane Research station Jalandharand some of the sugar factories in Punjab & Tamilnadu have shown that wider interrow spacing 135-150cm can be used without any adverse effect on cane yield and that the ratoon yield is higher with wider spacing as compared to 75 and 90 cm spacing and cane quality better.this will further help in growing intercrops more successfully .With spacing of 135-150 cm ,sunflower can also be grown as intercrop in spring cane without any adverse effect of sugarcane .Previous experiments of growing sunflower with 75 -90 cm interrow spacing had shown that sunflower affects the cane crop very adversely .The technology of intercropping has been adopted considerably in North Indian cane growing states and could become more popular if wider inter-row spacing of 135-150 cm is adopted" http://www.sugarudyog.com/art1.htm
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(2) Intercropping sugarcane
"Researchers in Nairobi, surprised to find malnutrition among the families of relatively well-paid sugar-cane workers, devised an ingenious corrective." By marginal widening of the row crop spacing, they found "room for two protein-rich, non-cash crops (maize and beans) which could be harvested within three months of planting. As cane takes 22 months to mature, it proved possible to snatch two successive inter-row crops before the spreading roots of the cane feel any adverse effects from the competition." A great side benefit is that the need for cane weeding was reduced. (The reason for the malnutrition among the workers and their families was that the need for cash for buying property, consumer goods, schooling, and physical assets competed with their need for food.)" http://www.echonet.org/tropicalag/aztext/azch5int.htm (3) Sustainable sugarcane ...
From being originally an exclusive monocrop, sugar cane is now involved in intercropping and rotation cropping. Research is being carried out by the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute (MSIRI) to look into ways and means of maximising productivity of sugar cane lands by cropping systems research. Several avenues are being explored, viz. the use of early-maturing varieties in order to increase sugar production while simultaneously releasing land earlier for rotation crops, a reduction in the cropping cycle from the traditional seven years since intercropping can only be done in plant cane and early ratoons and the optimum mix of long season: short season canes. This is largely determined by labour availability and the extent of mechanisation (Anon, 1990). The economic implication of these changes need to be assessed since they imply new costs of production (Berthelot, 1992). Research also needs to focus on the best combination of crops in intercropping and rotation systems in order to maximise net returns without detrimental effects on long-term productivity of these lands. Preliminary results have indicated that one of the most productive systems is sugar cane in association with bean at high density (Ismael and Govinden 1991). http://www.prosi.net/mag96/malho330.htm
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Cane residue Mulch and Pests
(1) "The incidence of these diseases in canegrubs is much lower in the Burdekin than in other areas. It was shown that up to five times as many advanced larvae occurred under crops where harvest residues were burnt, compared to crops where residues were trash-blanketed (retained undisturbed on the surface after harvest). Mortality of young grubs was relatively high in the cooler, moister soil under trash-blanketed ratoon crops. Virtually all of the ratoon cane in the Burdekin is managed by burning trash and cultivating the inter-row space, whereas crops from Ingham to Babinda are cut green and trash is retained as a blanket on the soil surface. Farm cultural practices are undoubtedly contributing to persistence of greyback canegrub at high population densities in the Burdekin region." Click here for full article ----> http://www.srdc.gov.au/downloads/2_FungusAttack.pdf
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(2) Virtually no tillage is practiced on ratoon fields.
Green cane harvesting in the Mulgrave area has been in existence for almost 20 years. Ninety-five percent of the total area harvested in Mulgrave is now cut green. A green cane trash blanket (GCTB) covers the ground in these fields. Trash is allowed to stay undisturbed on the soil to decompose. Therefore, no tillage has been carried out. Some benefits from GCTB are moisture retention, weed and grass prevention as well as letting soil recondition, earth worm populations to build up etc. Preparation of my land for planting for the last two years has been by strategic tillage. This in effect means that the soil is cultivated just where the row of cane is planted. The inter-row space is left uncultivated as much as possible. Soil dwelling pests increase under intensive cultivation because tillage suppresses the predators, parasites and diseases that attack the pests. For example, diseases of greyback cane grub including the fungi Metarhizium and Adelina can suppress grub numbers under uncultivated trash blankets." Click here to read full story
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