Official says crop start will be based on cane research to determine maturity

The 2023 sugar cane harvest season may not start by mid-February as anticipated by the Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir and other officials.

The start date will depend on the environmental conditions and maturity of the crop according to agronomist and acting head of the Agronomy Research Department (ARD) Nyah Nyhathu.

He told Barbados TODAY in an exclusive interview that a series of tests would first have to be carried out by the ARD but this critical research had been delayed by recent rains.

He said an island-wide brix survey would confirm the readiness of the canes, which will determine the start of the 2023 harvest.

“The brix testing of the cane helps determine the maturity of the cane. We basically want to know the sucrose content in terms of its purity. So what we test in brix is called total soluble solids. That would be a rough determination of the maturity of the canes at this time,” he said.

“The environment plays a big factor in the maturity of the canes and we need a drying out period. That is why the harvest is centred around the dry season. We are in the business of the economic part of the plant and we are going to harvest that plant when it is optimum and that is when we have a brix 16 per cent or above and a POL (the percentage of sucrose content in the cane) above 85 per cent.”

On Tuesday, Weir told Barbados TODAY that he wanted the harvest to commence by mid-February while chairman of the Barbados Sugar Industry Limited Mark Sealy stressed that the harvest should start no later than February 15 to avoid the fallouts associated with last year’s late start such as rotted canes.

However, Nyhathu stressed that the island needed more sunshine before the brix test could be conducted.

“I need to get at least a five to seven-day dry period before I even initiate my initial reading and thereafter you go periodically every two weeks and see the movement of the brix. So when we get the empirical data then we will be in a position to say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ in terms of when we want to start.”

He further explained: “If weather factors are not favourable it would mean that there would obviously be a push back. Everybody is desirous of an early start and I commend the private farmers to be in a position for that start time but at the end of the day, the cane has to tell us if it is time to start. So that is heavily dependent on what kind of data the cane throws up in the next two weeks.

“We are optimistic that we will get some drying out. This is the dry season. When we look at the pattern from last year we had an excess amount of rain in September, October and later into December. But with climate change, we have some extremities, it is either wet wet or very, very dry. So let’s wait until the next couple weeks play out and see what environmental factors we are dealing with.”

Testing will be done on both private and public farms and three teams of four people- one agronomist, one research assistant and two general workers- will carry out the tests using punches and refractometry equipment.

Other laboratory tests are also to be carried out by the Sugar Terminal Research Unit.

The 2022 sugar cane harvest started on Monday March 14 and private farmers repeatedly voiced their concerns about rotting canes.

However, Nyhathu said “I don’t have that kind of fear” for this year’s harvest.

There are at least 11 varieties of sugarcane planted in Barbados but there are five predominant ones found across the island. They are classified as B89447, B98235, B881607, BT7782 and B82238.

Nyhathu said, the five varieties had good characteristics as they produced high yields, were fast growing, had good ratooning and were smut-resistant. Smut refers to a cane disease.

Asked if the April ash-fall had any positive impact on the canes, he said: “The ash we had in 1979 was almost feathery and very light. But this ash was pulverised rock, like sand. From what I have seen so far I didn’t see any improvements in growth and development . . .” (sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb)