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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lincoln, Nebraska » Agroecosystem Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #346924
Title: Sugarcane straw removal effects on plant growth and stalk yield

Author
item LISBOA, IZAIAS - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item JUNIOR, ELIZIO - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item Jin, Virginia
item CHERUBIN, MAURICIO - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item CERRI, CARLOS ENRIQUE - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item Wienhold, Brian
item Schmer, Marty
item GUERRA, HENRIQUE - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item LIMA, RENATO - Universidad De Sao Paulo
item CERRI, CARLOS - Universidad De Sao Paulo

Submitted to: Industrial Crops and Products
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/2/2018
Publication Date: 12/8/2018
Citation: Lisboa, I.P., Junior, E., Jin, V.L., Cherubin, M., Cerri, C.P., Wienhold, B.J., Schmer, M.R., Guerra, H., Lima, R., Cerri, C. 2018. Sugarcane straw removal effects on plant growth and stalk yield. Industrial Crops and Products. 111:794-806. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.11.049.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.11.049

Interpretive Summary: Sugarcane plant residues remaining after stalk harvest may have negative impacts on sugarcane yields by impeding early season growth. Because sugarcane producers assume that decreased early growth under heavy residue cover will negatively impact final sugarcane stalk yield, Brazilian producers increasingly are adopting a precision mulching practice in which sugarcane straw is moved from within planting rows and concentrated between rows, leaving planting rows free of residue. Little empirical data are available to support whether sugarcane residues do suppress stalk yield and whether precision mulching can prevent yield suppression or even enhance stalk yield. A short-term field study at two contrasting locations in Brazil showed that precision mulching showed no effect on sugarcane plant nutrient contents or on final stalk yields during the first two ratoon cycles for sugarcane produced under either wet or dry growing seasons. Although the long-term impacts of precision mulching are unknown, these short-term results suggest that there is no economic benefit of using precision mulching practices, and that more evenly distributed residue cover may provide better recycling of residue nutrients back to these intensively managed agricultural soils.

Technical Abstract: Traditionally sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) was burned to remove leaf material and harvested manually. However, sugarcane harvest has gradually changed to mechanized harvesting system, which required adjustments to sugarcane cultivation practices, since ~15 Mg ha-1 of straw (dry mass) is left on the field annually. Delaying on crop establishment and decrease in stalk yield were pointed as a consequence of the straw layer, thus the majority of sugarcane mills have begun adopting an additional machine operation in the field to move straw above the plant row to inter-row position. In this context, a two-year experiment was conducted at Bom Retiro and Univalem mills during the dry and wet seasons to evaluate straw mulch management on plant tillering, phytomass accumulation, plant nutritional status and stalk yield. The experimental design was randomized blocks with three straw mulch management treatments: straw inter rows, bare soil and cover soil. Straw inter rows and bare soil management treatments improved plant tillering on the colder site, without influencing final plant population. Phytomass accumulation over each ratoon cycle was adjusted to a sigmoidal model (R2 = 0.92, p < 0.05), and straw mulching treatments slight affected plant growth. The straw maintenance on field increased phosphorus content on plant tissue under poor soil conditions, however stalk yield was not affected by the straw mulch management treatments in a short-term. Thus, straw inter rows management adoption lead to an additional machine operation in each ratoon cycle, this increases operating costs and greenhouse gas emissions during the production of the feedstock for sugarcane-based ethanol, without improving crop yield.