SBI develops new device for healthy sugarcane nursery

City-based Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI) has developed a new 'Sett Treatment Device' to raise a healthy nursery of setts in a shorter period of time.
The sett (seed material) treatment device was developed in collaboration with the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering's regional centre here.
It would treat the setts under reduced pressure so as to prevent them from diseases like red rot, smut and other fungal infections. These diseases have the potential to affect yield.
Sugarcane farmers can directly use the device for field planting or in the single bud nurseries to raise healthy seedlings, the Institute said in a statement.

Sugarcane setts are normally soaked overnight in solution of fungicides by which it can be protected from infection from setts or soil.
But there are practical difficulties in handling huge volumes of setts. The cost involved in the process has not made it feasible for adoption by the farmers, it said.

By using the new equipment, the sett treatment can be done in 10 to 15 minutes with more effective diffusion of chemicals into the sugarcane setts or buds.
Since the same chemical can be reused, there is a huge savings in chemical used for pre-treatment, thus making the system environment-friendly, addressing the issue of optimised chemical use in agriculture, it said.

Based on the results obtained in field trials conducted at the Institute and disease endemic locations with prototype, a scaled up model was developed.
The project has been funded by IDP (Instrument Development Programme) of Department of Science and Technology, it added.
Sugar production in India, the world's second-largest producer, increased 13 per cent to 24.72 million tonnes in the first six months of 2014-15 marketing year ending September as against 21.87 million tonnes in the corresponding period of 2013-14 marketing year.