Biostimulant for sugarcane ripening in drip fertigated fields

Abstract

In irrigated fields, sugarcane’s vegetative growth and carbohydrate consumption during ripening require ripener management options to improve crop yield. The hypothesis is that ripeners, together with nutrients, biostimulants, and amino acids, improve physiological responses that favor the quality of the raw material and increase the sucrose content. Consequently, the study aimed to evaluate the agro-industrial response of a fertigated sugarcane crop to ripening agents. The treatments consisted of applying chemical ripener (CR), nutritional ripener (NR), and a joint application of NR+CR, besides control with four replicates. Agro-industrial attributes (total soluble solids, apparent sucrose (AS), reducing sugars (RS), total recoverable sugar (TRS), purity, fiber, sucrose in the stalk (SS) were evaluated at 0 (before application), 12, 19, 36, and 60 days after application (DAA). The time modified the technological attributes of sugarcane under ripener application. The highest apparent sucrose and total soluble solids values were obtained with NR+CR compared to the control. The NR and NR+CR treatments presented the highest TRS contents (150 kg Mg-1) at 36 DAA. Furthermore, the NR+CR treatment increased fiber content but did not compromise the quality of the raw material, and it showed high contents of SS and purity percentage, as well as low contents of RS. The chemical and nutritional ripeners efficiently promoted sugarcane ripening in areas without drying off before harvest. NR application at the end of the cycle can potentially increase sugar yield.