Does the tolerance of sugarcane to excess water in the soil depend on the stage of development?

Abstract

Soil water logging reduces the availability of oxygen to the roots of the plants, which makes necessary an efficient drainage system for correction. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the tolerance of sugarcane in flooded crop with different velocities of lowering the groundwater in three stages of ratoon sugarcane development. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design (3 x 5 + 1), with three developmental stages (44, 210 and 305 days after planting) and five groundwater falling velocities (30 cm in 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 days) and the control (irrigation without flooding the soil). There was a significant effect for groundwater retraction velocities and evaluation periods for leaf area (LA) and leaf area index. The treatments P1V4 and P2V3 presented the highest LAs (0.91 m²). The first sugarcane ratoon was tolerant to soil waterlogging at different stages of development and to different groundwater falling velocities, with no major losses in plant development and productivity, however, for total recoverable sugar cane ratoon was more sensitive when the flood occurred in the regrowth stage.