Association technological and agronomic traits sugarcane for the quantitative and qualitative production of brown sugar

Abstract

Despite the growing demand for the consumption of brown sugar, there is little study on sugarcane cultivars and harvesting times more propitious for the production of brown sugar. In this sense, the objective of this study was to identify linear relationships between agronomic and technological variables of different genotypes and harvest times, to identify direct and indirect effects on the quantitative and qualitative production of brown sugar. For this, an experiment was carried out in a split-plot scheme (genotypes × growing seasons), in a randomized block design with four replications. The variables analyzed were stem height, the number of internodes, apparent sucrose in sugarcane, apparent sucrose from broth, soluble solids content of cane, fiber, purity, total recoverable sugars, average stem mass, the volume of broth extracted, content of soluble solids in the broth, frown sugar apparent sucrose, instrumental color, mass of brown sugar per ton of cane and the amount of broth per ton of cane. The statistical analyzes performed were path analysis and canonical correlation. The amount of juice per ton of cane and ºBrix of the juice can be selected for greater brown sugar production, both had a greater direct effect. With different responses in the three harvests, the canonical correlation showed interdependence between groups of variables, inferring those agronomic variables can be used in the selection of better-quality brown sugar cultivars. If the objective is greater sugar production, season 1 proved to be more promising in relation to the others.