[Terrapreta] biochar and sugarcane growth (reply to AD Karve)

[adkarve]

Dear Ron,

Tom has already answered most of the questions related to bagasse and trash burning. About 40 years ago, when I shifted my attention from botany to agriculture, I had this idea of using ash from a sugar factory boiler as a source of potassium in agriculture. But I was told at that time that under the high temperature of the boiler furnace, the potassium and silica in the bagasse fused and became insoluble in water. In those days, I was still naïve enough to believe in the textbook wisdom that water-insoluble inorganic compounds were useless as agricultural nutrients. Now I know better. A crop of sugarcane in India removes about 500 kg of silica per ha from the soil. I am quite sure that this silica comes from the water-insoluble components of the soil. I am also quite sure that soil micro-organisms have a role to play in solubilizing insoluble inorganic substances in the soil. 

As to my way of sugarcane planting, all I have been recommending is to produce seedlings from single-node cuttings of sugarcane in a plastic bag, and to transplant two months old seedlings at a spacing of 1m X1m. I served in 1974 as a member of a Sugarcane Study Committee, that was commissioned by the State Government to study why the yield of sugarcane in the state was falling. One of the reasons identified by this committee was that the cane fields did not have adequate number of canes. The recommedation at that time was to increase the seed rate of sugarcane, but this recommendation did not produce the desired results. Studies conducted by me in the 1980s established that lateral organs (branches or flowers) developed on a stem, only if that part of the stem is exposed to sunlight. It was also later established by me that this reaction was regulated by phytochrome. That is why densely planted corn has a large number of sterile stalks. when I discovered that tillering of sugarcane was promoted by reducing the mutual shading in the crop, I started expeimenting with low seed rates, but this practice resulted in a very gappy field, because the seed cane did not germinate uniformly. Therefore, I tried out the method of seedling transplanting, and it worked. The transplanted seedlings survive in the field to the extent of 98%. At 1mX1m spacing, there are 10,000 seedlings per ha. At this spacing, each seedling produces at least ten tillers, giving 100,000+ canes per ha, at the time of harvest. If each cane weighs 2 kg, you have your 200 tonnes per ha. This is of course the fresh weight. On an average, sugarcane contains about 14% solids that are water soluble, and another 14% fibre. Thus the total dry weight of 200 tonnes of stripped sugarcane i.e. without the leaves and tops, would be about 56 tonnes. 

Farmers are too lazy to make their own seedlings. Therefore they purchase seedlings from nurseries. Since the transport of live seedlings is costly, a large number of nurseries have sprung up, supplying seedlings to about 100 ha each. The transplanting technology was standardised by me under a project funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of India. Our efforts of popularizing the nursery business based on sugarcane seedlings was initially supported by a small grant from GTZ. The transplanting method also allowed a farmer to grow a short duration crop prior to sugarcane. Our advertisement states, " while your soybean, mungbean or sunflower is growing in your field, your sugarcane is growing in our nursery".

Sugarcane is a photoperiodically sensitive crop. Any crop, planted up to May, would flower in November/December. The crop planted from June onwards, would flower in the next November. Thus farmers prefer to keep the ratoon of a crop that is harvested in the beginning of the harvesting season, i.e. November to January, because the ratoon crop gets about 10 to 12 months to grow. A ratoon kept later than this date does not get enough time to grow. It flowers in November along with other cane fields, and yields less.

Yours

A.D.Karve 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ron Larson 
  To: adkarve ; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 
  Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 5:35 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] biochar and sugarcane growth (reply to AD Karve)


  AD (cc terrapreta list):
   
      A few more comments and questions below:
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: adkarve 
    To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 
    Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 10:56 PM
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] biochar and sugarcane growth (reply to AD Karve)


    Dear Ron,

    It was a tongue in cheek suggestion, correlating the practice of burning sugarcane leaves with dropping yield of sugarcane. I know what is wrong with our sugarcane and I have already started teaching farmers a new practice of sugarcane cultivation. Those who follow my recommendations are getting 200 tonnes per ha. And please note that my suggestions do not include increasing the fertilizer dose. 

        RWL:   Sorry I missed the "cheek".  

        I presume 200 is NOT bone dry tonnes.  Can you estimate the lower "dry" number?  I presume that your recommendations include the periodic application of sugar/leaf mixtures for the bacteria?  Anthing else?

        Secondly, I am quite convinced that adding charcoal to the soil would work even in soils having high pH. After all, charcoal is chemically a neutral substance. Its porous nature offers the soil micro-organisms a safe haven to survive under adverse conditions. I also feel that the pieces of charcoal, loaded with micro-organisms, act like matrix bound enzymes. So, I would be surprised if charcoal were found to be not beneficial to alkaline soils.

    In my state, farmers generally produce only one crop of sugarcane of about 18 months. Only the farmers, whose cane is harvested right at the beginning of the campaign season keep a rattoon crop.The rattoon crop of late harvested sugarcane gives a low yield. 

        RWL:  I am surprised at the single crop practice in India (or Maharashtra?).  There must be considerable advantages to using the ratoon (sprouting from cut base) method - as 3, 4 or more ratoon crops seems to be widely practiced around the world (and avoids soil disturbance, etc).  Do you feel the single 18 month cycle is the right way to grow cane in India?  If the soil was more productive, might the ratoon approach be preferred?  Might the terra pretta approach provide that improved soil?

        If a farmer who ratooned "late", grew his crop so as to be "early" in the n+1st season (maybe 18-20 months?), might that prove economic?  In Australia, some at least have a 24 month cycle.

    Bagasse is traditionally used by the sugar industry as boiler fuel. In fact, sugar factories consider themselves lucky, because sugarcane brings its own fuel with it. The sugar industry in India is totally independent of external supply of energy. Some factories, that produce extra electricity to supply it to the utilities, need additional fuel, and they have turned their attention to the dry leaves of sugarcane, called sugarcane trash. But, at least in India, the bagasse as well as trash are directly burned as boiler fuel to generate steam, which in turn drives the turbines for generating electricity. Pyrolysis of the fuels and using only the pyrolysis gas as fuel is a new idea. I am a council member of the Deccan Sugar Technologists' Association. I shall air this idea in our next meeting. However, adding the char to the soil might not be acceptable to the colleagues, because they would like to briquette the char and sell it as fuel, to make more profit. 

        [RWL:  Good to hear you are active in this sugar association!

        I think the economics today will relate strongly on whether the bagasse is in excess - which has been my assumption.  

        Re your last sentence, I hope your associates will begin (best under your direction through ARTI!) some simple experiments first on the value of placing the pyrolyzed bagasse back into the cane fields.  They may be correct, but perhaps a CDM or JI project would change those economics, if the impact on the bacteria and fungus is as large as we hear from some investigators.   The projected profit must be based on more than the first year comparison - as briquetting can provide no continuing benefits.  Any cost data you can provide will help this list to better understand the magnitude of needed international funding for the negative carbon aspects of the terra petra practice.

       Before closing - let me modify a request in my last message which should have read:  {"Anything you can do to ascertain how much char remains in these burning operations in India would be a big help."  (NOT Australia, which I guess was on my jet-lagged brain.) 

        AD - thanks again for all your good work.   Ron

     

    Yours

    A.D.Karve

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