RING PIT METHOD SUGARCANE CULTIVATION | Sugarcane Farming Guide

Hi friends! Welcome to Discover Agriculture YouTube channel. If you're not yet subscribed to our channel, please subscribe now. A new method of sugarcane cultivation is called the pit method or ring pit method, which is cost-effective and at the same time helps farmers to get a higher yield, is slowly catching on. Several farm trials have proved that by adopting this ring pit method, the crop yield can be increased to 2 or 3 times compared to the row-to-row planting technique. Through the ring pit method of sugarcane planting, localized application of fertilizer is done in pits. It is considered that applied nutrient is used more efficiently as these are placed in the vicinity of roots which accommodate a greater amount of millivulcanes per unit area for yield maximization. Ring Pit Method in Sugarcane Production Ring pit planting method increase the crop yield up to 180 tons per hectare. In each ring or pit, about 20 to 3 budded sets are placed horizontally in a circular manner. The crop under ring planting consist mostly of mother shoots which are thicker and heavier. Under the conventional system, the stem cuttings or sections of sugarcane stalks usually having three buds used for planting sugarcane are developed in rows of 90 cm spacing and are arranged in a series without adequate spacing. This makes germinated sets thin in appearance ultimately affecting the number of canes in each set and its development. In the ring pit method, sugarcane sets are then planted and raised in round pits at the spacing of 180 cm between rows and 150 cm between individual pits in a row. The pits are dug using particularly designed tractor-drawn power tillers. The pits are filled with topsoil, 5 kg of farmyard manure, 100 g gypsum and 125 g superphosphate and are watered well before planting and pit depth is kept at 1.25 ft to 1.5 ft. Under this ring pit system, around 2700 pits are made per acre. After planting sets in this process, care is taken to see that only 30 mother shoots are allowed to develop which then leads to the development of robust and healthy millibul canes of 1.25 to 1.75 kg each. This technology can give a yield of 800 to 1500 quintals per acre if the recommended package of practices is fully adopted. The ring pit planting method of sugarcane cultivation is more water and nutrients efficient as well. This method not only reduces water use but enhances nutrient use efficiency. Further, no ploughing and lodging are necessary which saves labor and machining cost. Ring pit method appropriate for drought prone areas, undulating topography, lightly textured soils, saline sodic soils, multiple retuning, tall and thick cane varieties. Intercultural operations of sugarcane crop. Break the soil crust, if any, when soil moisture reaches to workable condition and fill the pits with the dugout soil up to 5 to 7 cm depth at the fourth leaf stage, 50 to 55 days after planting in autumn and 40 to 45 days after planting in spring. Provide light irrigation and apply 16 g urea per pit at workable soil moisture condition. Depending on soil and weather conditions, give light irrigations at an interval of 20 to 25 days. Carry out weeding in pits season when necessary. Apply 16 g urea per pit in the third week of June. In the last week of June, apply 33 kg furidin 3 g per hectare to control top borer. Keep the gap of at least 3 to 4 days between applications of urea and furidin. Fill the pits with dugout soil by the last week of June and earthing up before the onset of monsoon. Tie canes of each pit together with lower dry leaves in the first fortnight of August and tie the clumps of opposite rows together in September. Eliminate lower dry leaves during the months of August-September. Harvest the cane close to the ground level to get a good succeeding ratoon crop and to avoid yield loss. This video may help a lot of farmers. Share this video with your all friends. We need your support to do this kind of work. Hope you like this video. Please do subscribe our channel and click the bell icon to get notifications whenever we publish new video. Thank you for watching this video. Have a great day.