The influence of depth and method of cane planting on stool tipping and yield on a red ferrosol at Bundaberg

Abstract

Cane growers are adopting minimum tillage sugarcane planting methods to reduce costs and labour and to improve soil health by reducing soil disturbance. At planting, tillage can be minimised or eliminated by direct drilling cane into a pre-formed bed, the most common way of achieving this is by using a double disc opener (DDO) planter. Sugarcane planted with a DDO planter is known to yield the same as a conventionally planted crop; however, the effect on crop morphology and ontogeny is unclear. Additionally, billets are often planted shallow with a DDO and the consequences of this are uncertain. One other issue is that the cost of DDO planters is beyond the means of many growers, so it would be prudent to know if direct drill planting can be achieved with more conventional equipment. We aimed to address these issues on a Red Ferrosol in Bundaberg, by comparing DDO planting (shallow and deep) with conventional planting. Additionally, to test a low cost method of direct drill planting, we simply removed the mouldboards from a conventional planter. A replicated trial indicated that the DDO treatments had a higher proportion of stool tipping in the plant crop but not in 1st ratoon. Importantly, we found no significant difference in the yield of the plant and 1st ratoon crops, illustrating that a conventional planter can be used to direct drill. However, in both crops the DDO-shallow treatment had a significantly lower stalk weight. These results suggest that more work needs to be carried out to determine the most effective way to use DDO planters and that the yields achieved by conventional planting can be matched by direct drill.