sugar cane yields.......

[Mudcrab]

The original method of burning cane was to reduce the risk of Weils disease - basically a disease the cutters got from rats piss, and not very nice from what I understand. And burnt cane easier to get in and cut.

What I was referring to was mechanised harvesting (and planting) where the harvester cuts the cane and leaves the trash behind.

The trash blanket is used in the higher rainfall areas - not so much the Isaan type climate.

Where I worked (in a sugar mill as an engineer for many years) has an Isaan type climate with distinct wet and dry but plentiful water for irrigation.The farmers drag the trash into rows and burn it after harvesting ....more to keep the rows clear of trash to allow water flow.

We are talking fairly big farms here - 300 acres or more and laser levelled to get the water flow right.

Higher costs for herbicide, but being irrigated, much higher yields. And obviously much higher labour costs - hence the mechanisation.

I did ask the question previously about mill payments. Do they use a tonne times sugar content for payment or is it just tonnes of cane, with the amount of sugar ignored? The farmers are on a quota system?

I'm tempted to try cane farming here myself....not that I have ever done it before , but do understand the industry and processes quite well.

Pay CCS as well. If farmers sell to the mill, then there is a quota system. Most farmers sell to a middle man (who can transport) at tonne price. That's all they get.

Thanks for the info.

One more question - is it possible to buy mill mud from the mill? It is in Oz and is very good for growing veggies as the milling process requires lime to be added control the pH so the mill mud has a ph of around 6.5 - 7

[Canada]

It is, but my understanding is that you need to have a quota with the mill to do so. You can buy the liquid stuff as well, I don't know what it is called. The Thais call it "gak namtaan" . You can buy it for 1000 dollars a tanker load. I've seen more of that in our area than the bagasse. What's it called?

[Mudcrab]

It is, but my understanding is that you need to have a quota with the mill to do so. You can buy the liquid stuff as well, I don't know what it is called. The Thais call it "gak namtaan" . You can buy it for 1000 dollars a tanker load. I've seen more of that in our area than the bagasse. What's it called?

The only thing I can think it would be is molasses - the dark gooey stuff left over after the final fugalling (using centrifuges to separate the sugar crystal from the mother liquor).

It can be used as a "fertiliser", although I believe it is more that worms like it, so they travel to the topsoil to eat it and then burrow back down, than it is a fertiliser in the traditional sense. The worms aerate the soil plus their casting are good for the soil too.

They do a similar thing with molasses in Oz as well as selling it to cattle farmers for the stock.

The molasses still has a fair amount of sugar in it. That's why the term CCS is used to describe sugar content of cane. Commercial Content of Sugar. It gets to a point that it becomes uneconomical to keep processing the sugar juice to get every last drop of sugar out.

One of the factories we had also used the molasses as a feedstock to produce ethanol by fermentation/distillation. The stuff left over is called dunder and is also so as fertiliser.

One quite famous distillery uses the molasses to produce rum - Bundaberg Rum. I think Vegemite is also produced from molasses.

[ArfurMaggot]

Certainly. A yield is the quantity, level of power or magnitude of a given product or source. In this case, sugar cane.

[loong]

It is, but my understanding is that you need to have a quota with the mill to do so. You can buy the liquid stuff as well, I don't know what it is called. The Thais call it "gak namtaan" . You can buy it for 1000 dollars a tanker load. I've seen more of that in our area than the bagasse. What's it called?

As Mudcrab says, it is molasses. I buy it for my EM mixes

www.thai2english.com/dictionary/1266755.html

[Canada]

From the reading I was doing, I thought that it could be what they call blackstrap molasses. Turns out it is. Hmmmm, not too expensive to buy really, Maybe a guy should start making rum on the side.