Enhancing Productivity is one of three research programs within the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Sugar Production (CRC Sugar). The program was established to undertake research and education to improve the profitability and international competitiveness of the Australian sugar industry through the development and adoption of novel management practices across the raw sugar industr...

Sugar cane growers in Puerto Rico are faced with problems of weed control as any other farmer in the world. He is faced with increased cost of production of cane, through higher labor and material costs. When labor costs were low, much of the weed control was done by many men using machetes and other implements. As every farmer knows "weeds are plants out of place." Since beginning of farming, ...

The South African sugar industry harvests in excess of 20 million tons of sugarcane annually. More than 90% of this tonnage is currently being harvested manually. During 2002, the South African Sugar Association Experiment Station’s Agricultural Engineering Department conducted a comprehensive cane cutter survey throughout the South African and Swaziland sugar industries. The primary objective ...

Recovery of sugars from cane molasses (i.e. the by-product of sugar industries) is of great interest to industry and academia. The prerequisite for refning cane molasses is removal of pigments and suspended solids present in the molasses. In this work, the utilization of membrane separation for clarifcation and decoloration of cane molasses has been examined. Three oper...

This study examines social complexity in the sugar industry. The sugar industry is complex, characterized by multiple stakeholders each with their own objectives. This study focuses on the interrelationships between the stakeholders by analyzing social complexity. The qualitative research approach was employed. Twenty-three in-depth, unstructured interviews were conducted with various stakehold...

Arguments are presented favouring the step-wise introduction of mechanisation into cane harvesting. The multi-pass "McConnel" system of whole stick harvesting offers such a phased introduction. Three machines are introduced in the following order as labour becomes scarcer a versatile loader, a reaping aid which leaves the cane in orderly swaths "inline", and a pickup cleaner-bundler which takes...

The present series was planted in October, 1928, and comprises those varieties of which it was considered desirable to have quantitative trials and of which sufficient material had already accumulated for this purpose. These varieties were Co 205 and 210 of the Coimbatore seedlings, several, canes of the Uba type, including CH. 64/21, a cross between Uba and D. 74, produced at the Cuban Agricul...

Partitioning of dry matter (DM) in sugarcane is of interest for two fundamental reasons. Firstly sugar production depends directly on partitioning of biomass to the stalk and then to sucrose stored in the stalk. Secondly, various DM components of the stalk and particularly sucrose concentration are used to calculate the value of cane consignments delivered to the mill (Berding, 1997). The value...

Blast furnace slag (BFS)/sugar cane bagasse ash (SCBA) blends were assessed for the production of alkali-activated pastes and mortars. SCBA was collected from a lagoon in which wastes from a sugar cane industry were poured. After previous dry and grinding processes, SCBA was chemically characterized: it had a large percentage of organic matter (ca. 25%). Solutions of sodium hydroxide and sodium...