Yield Response of Late Planted Spring Sugarcane to Direct Set Sowing and Transplanting

(Mohamed Aweys Ahmed Galal and Adel Mustafa Oboslamh and Mahdi Abdul Muttalib To'eima and Ahmed Zaki Ahmed)

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Abstract

Sugarcane farmers in Egypt are currently delaying the spring season planting date to mid April or mid May instead of March to allow for a full- winter crop harvest such as broad bean or wheat. This process reduces cane growing season length and severely affects tillering pattern and net cane at the end of the season. This work was carried out to investigate yield response of some sugarcane varieties to transplanting as a method to overcome delayed spring planting. The work was carried out at El-Mattana Research Station, Luxor Governorate, Egypt (Latitude 25o 188189; N) in 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons. Three varieties; i.e. G.T.54-9, G.98-28 and G.84-47 were planted using five planting methods namely; direct sowing on mid-March, mid-April and mid-May; along with two transplanting dates on mid-April and mid-May. Single eye cuts used for transplants were sown on March 1st in both seasons. A split plot arranged RCBD, in four replications, was used for the experiment. The three varieties were randomly distributed to the main plot while the five planting methods were assigned to sub-plot. The results indicated the variety G.T.54-9 was superior to the two other varieties in both seasons in number of millable cane/ha, cane length, cane diameter, cane weight, as well as cane and sugar yields. As for planting methods, direct sowing on March along with transplanting on April were superior in number of millable cane/ha, cane length, cane diameter, cane weight, as well as cane and sugar yields in both seasons. This indicates that transplanting in April could be used without any reduction of yield of cane while allowing for harvesting winter crop such as broad bean. Key Words: Crop rotation, Delayed planting, Sugarcane transplanting.
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