Abstract:
Field experiment to assess the effects of
ethrel and gibberlic acid on growth, yield and quality of sugarcane was conducted for three years (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17) at the Main Sugarcane research Station, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat, India. The results of the experiment indicated that planting of sugarcane with overnight soaking in 50 ppm ethrel solution increase germination to tune of 18.54% over conventional system of planting. Tiller population was also noticed significantly highest almost with growth regulators applied plots at both stages. Leaf area index was significantly increased with overnight soaking of setts in 50 or 100 ppm ethrel solution with spraying of gibberellic acid (35 ppm) at 90, 120 and 150 DAP (days after planting) (T
8) as compared to three budded setts planting. Yield and yield parameters viz., number of millable cane (108.23 000 ha
-1), cane length (264.50 cm), cane and commercial cane sugar yield (124.09 and 16.55 t ha
-1) respectively, was also recorded significantly highest with treatment T
8 as compared to conventional planting. Significant difference in juice quality parameters were not observed due to growth regulators treatment. Thus, the study showed that to obtain higher sugarcane production, setts should be planted after overnight soaking in 100 pppm ethrel solution with spraying of GA3 at 90, 120 and 150 DAP