Response of Summer Planted Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) to Tillage Practices and Planting Methods

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of tillage practices and planting methods on the performance of summer planted sugarcane at GBPUA&T, Pantnagar. Ten treatments comprising two tillage practices (conventional and no pre-planting tillage) and five planting methods (flat, ridge & furrow, trench, dual row trench and pit planting) were laid out in factorial randomized block design with three replications. No pre-planting tillage significantly increased the emergence percentage over conventional tillage besides attaining the more plant height, leaf area index and number of green leaves. Among different planting methods, maximum emergence (36.48 %) was noticed in trench method. In terms of growth, viz; plant height, number of green leaves and LAI, dual row trench method showed superiority over the remaining methods of the planting . Trench planting gave the maximum number of shoots which in turn also reflected in the maximum number of millable canes (108448 ha -1 ). In spite of non significant differences, no pre-planting tillage produced 1.4 t ha-1 higher cane yield than conventional tillage. No pre planting tillage gave Rs. 10586 ha-1 and Rs. 13311 ha -1 , higher gross and net return, respectively than conventional tillage and also had 12.1 per cent higher benefit cost ratio than conventional tillage. Trench method produced the maximum cane yield (90.8 t ha -1 ) which was significantly higher than flat and dual row trench planting. It also gave the maximum gross (Rs. 272989 ha -1 ), net return (Rs. 189278 ha -1 ) and B:C ratio (2.26).