Determination of the Optimum Harvesting Dry-off Period for the Optimization of Quality and Recovery of Sugarcane

Abstract

The time between water cutoff from field and cane harvesting is crucial. Increasing the time will lead to sugar deterioration and poor recovery and quality, decreasing the time may lead to soil compaction by harvesting and transporting machinery due to high moisture content as well as increased fuel consumption. This experiment was conducted at Sennar sugar factory to determine the optimum dry-off period for the optimization of sugarcane quality and recovery. Two systems of harvesting were studied, namely, mechanical and manual harvesting. Five dry-off periods were tested, one-, two-, three-, four-, five and six weeks of dry-off periods. It was found that the optimum dry-off period could be the four and five weeks because it gave the second best crop yield, second best cane quality and the lowest trash content.