Due to lack of specialist labor in sugarcane cultivation, sugarcane growers are unable to get the potential yield per hectare. Keeping this in mind the sugarcane department has introduced Sugarcane Nursery Transplanter which will provide relief to sugarcane growers in terms of labor cost and input cost and will increase the yield by 20% to 25%.
With these nursery transplanters, 4,000 to 6,400 single-bud nursery plants are required to be sown in one acre of field, which adds up to 5 to 7 quintals of buds as against about 35 quintals of buds in the traditional method. If the row-to-row and plant-to-plant spacing is 5 feet and two feet respectively, 4,000 young plants are needed and if it is 4×2 (row-to-row 4 feet and plant-to-plant 2) ft) so 6,400 nursery plants are required. “The seed price is around Rs 360 per kg which goes up to around Rs 12,600 per acre by traditional methods and Rs 1,800 to Rs 2,520 per acre,” said an expert.
Sugarcane is a C4 plant like corn and sorghum that requires more air and light to grow in a healthy way. With this transplanter where there is proper spacing from plant to plant and row to row, the thickness and height of the cane will be at its optimum level which will give higher yield because when a cane is thicker and taller, its weight will also be more.
Assistant Sugarcane Development Officer, Gurdaspur, Dr Arvinder Pal Singh said that about Rs 6,000 is spent by the laborers for setting up a sugarcane nursery in one acre and the plant to plant distance is not uniform. But with a transplanter, the cost comes up to Rs 3,000.
He said that keeping in view the increasing risk of diseases of the popular C-0238 variety, new varieties can be planted with this machine. It can also be used in sowing of vegetable nursery in the field.
Gurdaspur Assistant Sugarcane Commissioner Dr Amrik Singh said that for the first time in Punjab, the department has started experiments and the results are expected to be very encouraging. The laborers work as per their wish and hardly go for a uniform farming or department recommendation which affects the yield but with this machine there will be a uniform farming. Intercropping of oilseeds, wheat and pulses can be done on vacant land (row to row spacing) which can also increase the income of the farmers. Sugarcane crop has a life span of one year and it starts gaining prime height after 5-6 months. By then the other crops are ripe.”
“It also solves the first irrigation process to planter plants, which need irrigation immediately after sowing, as the cultivar has an attached water tank that sprays water at the time of sowing,” he said.
“The farmer can sow seven acres in a day and its uniform sowing provides enough space for air as well as intercropping in the field,” he said.
“Efforts are being made by the Sugarcane Wing, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, Punjab, Gurdaspur Co-operative Sugar Mills and the private sector to mechanize sugarcane cultivation,” Punjab Cane Commissioner Gurvinder Singh Khalsa said. Dr. Gurvinder Singh said that on the demand of sugarcane farmers, subsidy would also be given on machinery used in sugarcane cultivation from next year.
Due to the high cost of agricultural machinery, this machine has to be bought in groups and even sugar mills can buy these machines and supply them to the farmers at a reasonable rent.
He said that with this cultivation they are expecting that the yield of sugarcane per acre can increase by 100 to 150 quintals as at present the yield is around 350 to 400 quintals per acre which can go up to 500 to 600 quintals per acre.
The machine was launched by Mahindra & Mahindra and is priced around Rs 3.50 lakh.
Progressive farmer Ranayodh Singh said that the machine provided by the department seems to be helpful in sowing of sugarcane. Other sugarcane growers including Navdeep Singh, Karamjit Singh Bajwa, Ranjit Singh and Ashok Kumar expressed their desire to sow their sugarcane with this planter in the coming season in February-March. In Punjab, sugarcane is planted in the state in two seasons – autumn and spring – and about 80% of the main sowing takes place in spring. Presently, sugarcane is cultivated in an area of about 95,000 hectares in the state.
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