Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L) yield and quality in relation to planting methods, spacing and intercropping Chaudhari Vishakha D1,*, Virdia HM2, Chaudhari Naresh2 1Department of Agronomy, BA College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand-388001, Gujarat, India 2Main Sugarcane Research Station, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari-386450, Gujarat, India *Email for correspondence: vishakha@aau.in
Online published on 6 December, 2021. Abstract The study was carried out in south Gujarat at the Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat during 2015–16 and 2016–17. Different planting methods with plant spacing and intercropping system were evaluated on sugarcane crop. Different planting methods including seedlings raised in nursery tray and sprouted one-budded eye with two different plant spacings of 90 x 30 cm and 120 x 30 cm along with four intercrops namely onion, cabbage, greengram and control (sole cane) were tested. The results indicated that significantly higher cane yield (112.98 tonnes/ha) was recorded under the treatment having seedlings raised in nursery tray due to higher number of internodes (22.76), cane girth (10.46 cm) and number of millable canes (1,05,809/ha). The wider row spacing of 120 cm recorded significantly higher cane yield (112.27 tonnes/ha) and yield attributes. Significantly higher cane yield (112.75 tonnes/ha) was observed with sole crop of sugarcane; higher brix (20.43%), pol per cent cane (14.18%) and commercial cane sugar yield (14.44 tonnes/ha) with seedlings raised in nursery tray; higher commercial cane sugar yield (14.21 tonnes/ha) under spacing 120 x 30 cm and higher pol per cent juice (18.38%), pol per cent cane (14.22%) and commercial cane sugar (12.84%) were recorded with sugarcane + greengram which was at par with treatments sugarcane + onion and sugarcane + cabbage. Significantly higher commercial cane sugar yield (14.33 tonnes/ha) was recorded with treatment sugarcane + onion and it was at par with sugarcane + greengram (13.91 tonnes/ha) and control (13.48 tonnes/ha). Top Keywords Sugarcane, Planting methods, Wider spacing, Intercropping, Yield, Quality. Top |