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Towards a sugarcane revolution
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Saturday, 14 July, 2007, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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s from the research fields of Navsari Agricultural University (NAU) in Gujarat. The university has developed and released two high-yield varieties of sugarcane that in test conditions produced up to 150 tonnes of the crop per hectare. Put that against the average national yield of 60-100 tonnes a hectare and it makes NAU's 'Gujarat SC-5 and SC-6' cane variants the best-yielding in the country. The canes are also richer in sugar content by 20%, with 18 tonnes of sugar reported per hectare of produce.
While SC-5 is an early variety, meaning the crop matures in 10 to 12 months with a yield of 142 tonnes a hectare, the SC-6 is a mid-late variant, takes 12-14 months to grow and yields 150 tonnes. With the present average sugarcane yield in the state a mere 74 tonnes, scientists are aiming at a cane revolution. The university is in the process of multiplying the seeds to meet the frantic demand from south Gujarat farmers.
In his three-acre farm in Sadlav village of Navsari, Pinakin Patel reaped a bounty of 168 tonnes this season in 11 months. Earlier, he would wait for 14 months and the best he ever got was 120 tonnes. Such has been the excitement in his village that he could not send any cane to sugar mills - the seeds were given to fellow farmers at a premium.
Prakash Patel, another cane farmer in Sindhai village of Vansda taluka, sowed the new NAU variants and reaped a stupendous 80 tonnes an acre.
"We started work on this project in 2000. After extensive tests at the Sugarcane Breeding Institute in Coimbatore, we carried out trails on six plant and ratoon crops in our fields and decided to release them to the farmers this April. Mass cropping will take place in the October season," informs Dhansukh Patel, NAU's research scientist (sugarcane).
The seeds are being tested for a national release in fields across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
First, the Gujarat dynamics: at an average of 2 lakh hectares of crop area, the state produced 148 lakh tonnes of sugarcane last season at an average yield of 74 tonnes. NAU vice chancellor RPS Ahlawat informs that the achievement is just the kind of boost Gujarat's dipping sugarcane yield needs.
"From a yield of 89 tonnes in the early 1990s, diseases like wilt and red rot brought it down to a mere 60 tonnes. We brought some resistant varieties, yet the yield stayed at a low 74 tonnes. These two variants score on productivity too. We hope to distribute over 400 tonnes of seeds this season."
According to the varsity, even a modest productivity of 100 tonnes per hectare in non-test conditions means a 25% jump in produce. This should be good news for the struggling cane farmers of Maharashtra as the average yield there is a poor 65 tonnes per hectare.
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