Author(s):

V Dhanushkodi, Noorjehan AKA Hanif, G Amuthaselvi and S Easwaran

Abstract: Burning of sugarcane trash is a hazardous practice which has affected soil health, air, human health etc. leading to massive impact as well as monetary losses. The present study has been based on primary data collected from the sugarcane grower to highlight the constraints to this issue and to study the influence of in-situ sugarcane trash composting on soil fertility and cane yield. Traditional norms, lack of awareness on utilization of trash, lack of machinery and high cost of machinery emerged as the major reasons for the ongoing practice. The results of demonstrations on in-situ sugarcane trash composting in 10 farmers field shows that, in-stiu sugarcane trash composting has increased the organic carbon, available N, available P and available K content in soil from 0.42 to 0.45%, 317 to 331 kgha^-1, 14.5 to 16.1 kgha^-1 and 520 to 551 kgha^-1 respectively. The average cane yield of 92.5 tha^-1 was recorded in demo field and it was 4.8 percent over control plot (88.3 kgha^-1). The economic analysis showed that the gross income increased to 4.7 percent with the benefit cost ratio of 2.99 over control plot. Therefore in-situ composting can be a good alternate to mitigate these problems. Some of the measures to deal with the problem can be creating awareness among the farmers about on and off farm utilization of sugarcane trash through training, demonstration, custom hiring of expensive machinery for chopping of stubble, technical follow up by extension personnel etc. Creating awareness among the farmers through mass media about eco loss and significance of the problem can be further help in handing the major concern on burning of sugarcane trash.

Pages: 207-209  |  2167 Views  1143 Downloads

Download (522KB)