Sugarcane

Sugarcane Every hectare of sugarcane harvested leaves behind about 10 tonnes of dried leaves of sugarcane, called sugarcane trash. Sugarcane trash should be recovered from the fields through mechanic harvesting. The trash resists biodegradation, and therefore cannot be used as directly as a fertilizer. When sugarcane trash is burnt, most of the organic matter and nutrients in the trash are lost. A charring process is developed for converting sugar-cane trash into high-value char. Sugarcane smut spores in trash bales used for garden mulch or stock feed could spread smut to cane fields if the trash comes in close contact with a commercial crop. Dried leaves of sugar cane, or sugar-cane trash, resist biodegradation and cannot be used either as cattle fodder or as a raw material for making compost. Due to the herbaceaous nature of sugar cane trash, water leaching was proposed and investigated as a means of reducing the slagging and fouling potential of the raw fuel. Considering the size of the global sugarcane industry, it is apparent that there is an enormous potential for the introduction of sugarcane trash for year-round electricity generation at sugarcane mills. Trash mulching also plays an important role in reducing borers infestation in sugarcane and has been recommended as an alternative for chemical control of sugarcane shoot borer, Chilo infuscatellus Snell. Sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane trash are residues from sugar and alcohol production, an economic activity that is well established in Brazil. Millions of tons of agro-waste from rice, sugarcane, and groundnut plants (rice husks, sugarcane trash) in India could produce up to 60,000 million units of bioenergy