EFFECT OF HARVEST AGE ON YIELD COMPONENTS, CANE YIELD AND QUALITY OF SUGARCANE(Saccharum officinarum L.) VARIETIES AT TANA BELES SUGAR ESTATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) age of harvest is one of the most important factors affecting its productivity, and studies showed that sugar yield is also determined by the age of harvesting. Consequently, a study was conducted with the objectives of investigating the effect of harvesting age on yield components, cane yield and quality of sugarcane varieties. The experiment was conducted in factorial combination in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) using three replications from March 03, 2022 to June 27, 2023. The treatment comprised four harvesting stages (13, 14, 15 and 16 months after planting) and three sugar varieties (NCo334, N-14 and C86/56) at Tana Beles Sugar Estate. The results showed that harvest age significantly (p≤0.05) influenced the number of stalks and highly significantly (p≤0.001) affected cane height, diameter, weight, cane yield, sugar yield and sucrose content. However, cane and sugar yield were affected by the the interaction effect of harvesting age and variety. The varieties NCo334 and C86/56 resulted in a higher sugar yield of 1.29 tons per ha per month and 1.2 tons per ha per month, respectively, at the age of 15 months, while N-14 gave high sugar yield of 1.21 tons per ha per month at the age of 16 months. The optimum harvesting age of two varieties NCo334 and C86/56 was found to be 15 months after planting, while for N 14, it was found to be 16 months. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the results at the commercial level