COIMBATORE: Sugar mills and Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI), Coimbatore, have come together to develop new varieties of cane, which will provide higher yield and better sugar recovery. Sugarcane mills say the sugar recovery has been consistently dropping over the years in the variety cultivated by them.
"The point is to identify sugarcane varieties that will give a high cane yield and better sugar recovery in specific locations. Because, different varieties are developed for different soil, climatic and irrigation conditions," SBI director Bakshi Ram said. The cost of the project will be around `46.2 lakh and will be funded by SISMA."The initiative is aimed at improving the cane yield and sugar recovery which will immensely benefit the farmers," SISMA-TN president Dr Palani G Periasamy said. The project will include two sets of evaluation trials that will be spread across a period of five years. The tissue culture based seed material will be provided by SBI to the factories, which will cultivate them in their land. Scientists from the institute will visit trial locations periodically and monitor the performance of trial runs. The aim is to identify lo cation specific sugarcane varieties that are non-flowering, drought tolerant and have red rot resistance. The trial locations have been identified by a team comprising scientists from the institute and senior cane managers from the sugar mills based on the geographical location, soil and climatic conditions.