Qualitative and quantitative response of sugarcane cultivars under different planting geometry

Planting geometry could be an important factor in harvesting sugarcane's maximum production in Pakistan's irrigated agriculture. Therefore, the present experiment was designed to investigate the potential effects of two planting geometry (i.e., 75 cm apart single row trench, farmers' practice, and 120 cm apart dual rows trench plantings, recommended practices by Agricultural Research Wing) on three high yielding cultivars of sugarcane (e.g., HSF 240, CP 77-400 and CPF 249) at farm area of Sugarcane Research Institute (SRI), Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), Faisalabad during 2019-20. The treatments were randomized in Complete Block Design (CBD) under split-plot arrangements using three replications. The results showed that planting geometry of 120 cm apart dual rows trench planting produced significantly higher tillers (15.32 m-2), millable canes (103085 ha-1), total fresh biomass (123.41 t ha-1), average cane weight (0.95 kg) cane yield (97.94 t ha-1), and harvest index (79.29 %). Among the cultivars, the highest tillers (16.16 m-2) were recorded by HSF 240, but maximum millable canes (104195 ha-1), total fresh biomass (128.70 t ha-1), average cane weight (0.98 kg) and cane yield (101.95 t ha-1) were observed in CP 77-400. Furthermore, a higher sugar recovery (12.66%) was obtained from CPF 249 compared to HSF 240 and CP 77-400. Planting geometry had no impact on the sugar recovery of the cultivars