Watering The Sugarcane

[joker7]

The wife's family have now got to the stage where they've cut and planted the sugar cane. This is the first season for planting. How long will the sugarcane last without water ?

Seems they are having a problem extracting the water from the river alongside.

Joker

[ozzydom]

Seriously Joker, if the family dont know the answer to your question,what are they doing planting cane in the first place.

[WatersEdge]

Hi joker7,

Sugar is amazingly resilient.

It wants to live.

Like any hardy plant,

it survives on rough conditions,

to thrive on good conditions.

It loves lots of water,

demands high sulfur content.

If in doubt, add more gypsum.

Sulfur is not clearly understood by a lot of sugar farmers,

which explains disappointing yield.

Pumping from a river is what I did for a long time.

I used

three 4 inch foot valves on

one 4 inch suction line feeding a

3 inch centrifugal pump powered by

14hp Kubota Diesel.

I was pumping 400-500 liters per minute,

depending on the pressure required to reach destination

and the speed of the engine.

A diesel has the advantage of variable speed over an electric,

but it does not run as efficiently at full throttle as it does at 70% throttle.

On low pressure mode, open discharge into fish ponds, I throttled back and let it run all night.

Running sprinklers in the day time I ran it full speed to get good pressure.

You would like to keep the suction line as short as possible,

with as little elevation difference as possible.

Ideally you'd like your pump right at the waters edge.

However, pumps engines don't like to be flooded,

so you have to negotiate with nature.

Friction loss is especially troubling in the suction line,

so you want to remove all possible obstruction to free flow.

Some would say my suction line described above was crazy overkill.

I did it that way for clear reasons, and stand by the design as successful for me.

Watching the sugar farms around me,

had I been them and had plenty of money

I'd have put permanent set PVC sprinkler systems in,

to water it heavily during the dry season.

Why allow the dry season to go to waste when you have river water?

Those hot bright days are just as valuable as rainy season days.

I used impact Sprinklers Super Products RC-160 which I bought at Global House for B95 each.

I put them 1.5 meters above the ground on a two inch riser for stability,

necked down to 3/4 for the final half meter.

I buried the sprinkler line half meter,

so the earth provides stability for the two inch riser.

The size of the sprinkler line is 2" for the last 100 meters of any line,

3" for the next 100 meters,

as the RC-160 puts out around 20 liters per minute,

a relatively high volume sprinkler,

so it requires large enough pipe to carry the total volume.

I spaced sprinkler lines 20 meters on center

Sprinklers 10 meter centers on the line

Offset 5 meters in relation to the adjacent sets.

Running at around 25-30 meters head,

the RC-160 has a 12 meter radius,

which is ideal for the spacing described 20x10 with 5 offset

At a 12 meter radius you also get sufficient spray breakup for consistent pattern.

At low pressure it's a pencil stream with concentrates at the outer circumference.

I mentioned diesel engine, but that was because I had no electricity on that farm.

If you have electricity available, it is much cheaper than diesel.

Energy cost will make or break your operation, so squeeze every last advantage from it.

I tried to show a Potato farmer how to triple his yield

by applying twice the water and three times the fertilizer

on 1/3 the diesel

but he didn't listen.

He still made money the way he did it,

so he was happy enough.

Sugar is also a high water crop as Potato,

so similar numbers apply.

[joker7]

I would imagine the family do know the answer I never asked them. Just thought id do a bit of research myself incase I need to jump in as I leave everything up to them.

Very informative post waters edge. Seems they now have the pump working and they are watering as we speak. When I was up last week we were setting up the watering system with 3" pump to 75m 2" PVC with 100m of black hose which ran off the 2" PVC every 1m or so. So its a big spread.

There is no electric on the land with the nearest road being 200m away. I can imagine it would be pointless and expensive to bring electric in.

Im interested to know how much kg of fertilizer you would suggest / rai. And what product. My wife has just mentioned she is going to fertilize twice.

Once during planting which has already been done and once midway through growing.

We will add 100 kg fertilizer / 3 Rai.

Thanks again.

J

[nitecm]

I tried to show a Potato farmer how to triple his yield

by applying twice the water and three times the fertilizer

on 1/3 the diesel

but he didn't listen.

He still made money the way he did it,

so he was happy enough.

Sugar is also a high water crop as Potato,

so similar numbers apply.

I asked the villages to put ferterlizer third time ,but they are with the past practice

I have noted that 16-20-0 has 14 % sulphur and 2 % Ca

They used !6-20-0 Both time But one experiened guy told me if second time use 13-13-13 will get higher weight

,Can you give me some tip. ?

[farmerjo]

Dig up a sett,if still green its ok.

Normally got about 40 days till it goes off but dont panic.

Use 16-16-16 or 15-15-15 fertilizer,100 kg a rai,50 with planting and 50 when sugar starts to boot up.

That with good seasonal rain should get you 14 plus ton a rai