Cutting sugarcane stumps with serrated cylindrical blades on ratoon cane

Abstract

Cutting the sugarcane stump is one of the important activities in the ratoon sugarcane cultivation. Cutting the remaining sugarcane stump is done after harvest to grow new shoots. Cutting the sugarcane stump is usually done lower than the ground level. Cutting can be done manually or mechanically. The low productivity of ratoon cane can be caused by, among others, a lot of stumps that break, the time of cutting, shallow roots in the plants, and the lack of care in the plants. The cutting machine or stubble shaver used in sugar cane plantations have several disadvantages including inprecise blade design and the result of many stumps being broken so that productivity is low. The purpose of this study was to test the Serrated Cylindrical blades that rotate vertically to cut sugarcane stumps. As for the observations made the mound cutting profile, the percentage of stumps that broke, and the shoots productivity. The highest result of unbroken sugarcane stump in the second mound was 85.19%, then the first mound was 79.63% and then the third mound was 75.93%. The results of the growth of the number of shoots at 7 days after cutting in the first mound was 46 shoots, then the second mound was 43 shoots, and then the third mound was 34 shoots.