A review of the effect of harvesting time on sugarcane productivity

The sugar industry is debating the effects of changing season start and finish times in an attempt to improve industry profitability in a number of regions. A difficultJ for decision makers is lack of knowledge of the effects of harvesting cane outside the existing season. Past research from Australia has shown that the time of year when cane is harvested and ratooned significantly affects sugarcane productivity. However, the findings are often contradictory and obviously confounded by the effects of other factors such as crop age and management. Consequently, it is difficult to extrapolate knowledge from previous research to make decisions for the current industry. In this paper, a framework for understanding the effect of crop harvest date on sugarcane productivity is presented. The framework is based on the assumption that biomass accumulation under non-limiting conditions is dependent on crop class and age, cumulative radiation interception and the temperature regime during growth. However, for this to be ascertained for the Australian industry for different crop start and finish times, targeted field experimentation free from confounding factors is necessary. This experimentation combined with crop simulation modeling and operations analysis can help the Australian industry to develop harvest scheduling options.