Sugar industry wants new cane varieties

Even as the sugarcane survey is on in Uttar Pradesh to ascertain acreage and requirement of sugar mills, the sugar industry wants the state farmers to adopt new high yield varieties for maximising production.

Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) is pursuing the matter with the state government for these 4 varieties, namely Co0238, Co0239, Co0118 and Co098014. While, the first three are early varieties, Co098014 is suitable for waterlogged area and ‘terai’ region.

UP is the largest sugarcane producing state in India and the second largest sugar producer after Maharashtra. During 2010-11, the cane acreage in UP is likely to increase by 20 per cent and estimated to touch 2.15 million hectares.

“These varieties not only give higher yield of over 30 per cent, their cane recovery is also better than traditional varieties being used in North India, including UP, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana,” ISMA cane development advisor Dr Narendra Singh of ISMA told Business Standard.

These varieties give on average 100 tonnes/hectare yield vis-à-vis 65 tonnes/hectare of traditional varieties.

Almost 15,000 hectares in the 4 states were currently under new varieties and in the next 2011-12 season, almost 50,000 hectares would be covered.

“Even a 10 tonnes/hectare increase in yield would be massive considering the high acreage in UP,” he added.

Singh said the ratoon under these varieties was better and also produced good cattle feed.

Ratooning is a method which leaves lower parts of the plant along with the root uncut at the time of harvesting. This enables farmers to get multiple crops from these ratoon (stubble crop) before they have to replant.

Meanwhile, the annual sugarcane survey is on to weed out cane mafia from the system. The cane commissioner passes reservation order on the basis of the survey, which binds sugarcane area to a particular mill for crushing.

Since, the cane requirements of 130 odd functional UP sugar mills is pegged at 80 million tonnes, the survey ensures they get adequate cane supply during crushing.