Post harvest losses in sugarcane due to delayed harvest and crush

Sugarcane is the world’s most important sugar crop, grown for the purpose of white sugar, gur and khandsari. Out of World’s total white crystal sugar production about 70% comes from sugarcane which popularized the crop as kalpavriksha (or) wonderful crop. In India, the crop is cultivated over an area of 5.02 Million hectares, with production of 342.1 Million tonne and productivity of 68.1 t ha-1. As sugarcane is a perishable commodity it should be processed in to sugar quickly after it is harvested. Nearly one fourth of crushed cane in Indian sugar factories has been found to be stale in quality. However, the losses increase with the increase in duration of staling and varies with varieties. In this context it was planned to assess the effect of delayed harvest and delayed crush in sugarcane clones. The present study has revealed that that the clones 2006 T36 and 2006 T3 along with standards CoC 671 and Co 94008 recorded the highest juice quality and yield at all staling periods (0 to120 hrs) and at different months (10th, 11th, 12th,13th and 14th months) of crop harvest and found to posses tolerance to post harvest deterioration .