Abstract
Sugarcane is an important economic crop in southwest Japan, but its production is decreasing. To increase sugar production, both sugarcane yield and quality should be improved. Fertilizer management is one of the factors that influence sugarcane quality. We accordingly focused on nutrients present in sugarcane juice and attempted to identify the key factors affecting sugarcane quality. We collected sugarcane samples from 2013 to 2015 from all of the sugar mills in Japan and examined the relationships between juice nutrients and sucrose concentration. Juice analysis over 3 year showed that potassium (K+) and chloride (Cl−) were the most abundant cation and anion in the juice and that both negatively correlated with the sucrose concentration. K+ and Cl− concentrations significantly varied depending on production areas and those with higher K+ and Cl− concentrations had a low sucrose concentration. This finding suggests that sugarcane in those areas may have been supplied with these two ions in excess. Electrical conductivity (EC) in the juice always positively correlated with K+ and Cl− concentrations. EC may thus be a reliable indicator of K+ and Cl− concentrations and could be used for nutrient diagnosis because of its ease of measurement. For improving sugarcane quality, we recommend that potassium chloride, which supplies both K+ and Cl− and is a commonly used potassium fertilizer for sugarcane production in Japan, should be used in lower quantities in a year following one in which the EC of sugarcane juice at harvest is found to be high.
Highlights
In Japan, sugarcane is mainly grown in Nansei Islands, which are composed of many small islands and located at 24–31° N latitude and 123–131° E longitude
We investigated a new method for sugarcane nutrient diagnosis on the basis of the sugarcane juice obtained at harvest
We tried to identify factors affecting sugarcane quality and, following juice analysis for 3 yr, found that K+ and Cl− were the most abundant cation and anion in sugarcane juice (Table 2) and that the concentrations of these two ions negatively correlated with sucrose concentration (Table 3)
Summary
In Japan, sugarcane is mainly grown in Nansei Islands, which are composed of many small islands and located at 24–31° N latitude and 123–131° E longitude. Sugarcane is one of the most important agricultural products in this region, with an economic impact greater than that of any other crop (Iesaka, 2001) because of its relatively strong resistance to typhoons and drought. Considering that sugarcane price is determined by cane weight and sucrose concentration in juice, increasing production and producer profit will require improving both cane yield and quality. Fertilizer management practice is one of the factors that influence sugarcane quality (Meyer & Wood, 2001), but the application of suitable fertilizer management practices requires the knowledge of the nutritional status of each sugarcane field. Foliar diagnosis is a common practice in agriculture to manage the mineral nutrition of plants (Oliveira et al, 2010) and used to identify deficiency, sufficiency or excess of nutrients, optimize crop production, and evaluate fertilizer requirements. Foliar diagnosis can be a complex exercise because of the dynamic nature of foliar composition, which is strongly influenced by aging processes as well as interactions
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