Post Harvest Deterioration of Burnt Cane in Bundles

Recently attention has been focused on cane quality as a means of improving the overall performance of the South African sugar industry. Work by the SMRI pioneered the use of ethanol as an indicatorand showed a lossof between 2 and 3% of the mass of sucrose in fresh cane for every 1 000 ppm ethanol on brix. Results obtained during the implementation of this procedure routinely during the 1991 seasonat Tongaat-Hulett millswere queried on the basisof high ethanol levels coupled with high purities. To answer these queries and gain more information on the losses associated with deterioration two trials were run at Mount Edgecombe mill during August/September and November/ December. Mass losses from large bundles were lower than previously measured on smallerbundlesat 0,4% to 0,8% per day. The mass of sucrose lost was also much lower at approximately 1,0% for every 1000 ppm ethanol formed. The effect on overallsucrose recovery wasestimatedto be a drop of between 0,1 and 0,2 units per 1 000 ppm ethanol.