Microorganisms affecting Post-Harvest Sucrose Losses in Sugarcane

Sucrose losses after cane harvest is one of the most important problems in sugarcane crop particularly for millers and farmers. Loss in sucrose after harvesting causes low sugar recovery in mills. There are a large number of factors associated with low sugar recovery such as varietal type, atmospheric conditions, time lag, etc. Sucrose losses occurring in postharvest sugarcane are generally of four types(i) Chemical loss: Occur due to changes in pH and temperatures (ii) Microbial loss: Occur due to consumption of sucrose by its growth and proliferation (iii) Enzymatic loss: Occur due to microbial and invertase present in cells of sugarcane stalk (iv) Indirect losses occurring due to the formation of metabolites from microorganisms that invade in sugarcane or during processing. The major losses of sucrose after chemical loss in post-harvest sugarcane are of from microorganisms. Products formed from sugarcane as well in sugar mills are the most nutritive source for growth and proliferation of microorganisms. These microbes grow at a rapid pace and forms products that deteriorate sucrose of the cane stalk thereby hindering the production of final product, sugar (Solomon, 2009; Misra et al., 2016). Besides, the presence of International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 7 (2017) pp. 2554-2566 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com