Insight Focus
- I am waiting for the rainy season to arrive to apply another round of cane fertilizer.
- Monitoring cassava growth and plan to harvest in 45 days for better starch content.
- Lack of rainfall is still a concern because it is impacting cane performance.
What have you been up to?
I finished applying the fertilizer for sugarcane already and am applying herbicide again which is about 60% completed. Not much activity except waiting for rain to come and then applying another round of fertilizer.
Meanwhile, I tried harvest some of cassava roots but the starch content is still low so I will wait for some more rain so that the root will get bigger.
Hopefully I can start harvesting again in 45 days or around mid-July when the root is big enough for the market and with high starch content.
Re-applying herbicide using machinery and labor.
Again, I am trying to use more machinery so that I can save more time for other activities.
But if there are some areas that are difficult to enter for machinery, I will use labor too.
What stage is your crop at?
Some ratoon cane’s stalk is still underperforming, I believe this is because there isn’t enough rainfall. Normally, average rainfall in my province is around 600mm but this year it is around 400mm (-33% year on year).
Last month I mentioned I had to re-apply herbicide to cane crops, but unfortunately the formula was too strong and the cane leaves turned yellow.
I contacted the agency that I bought herbicide from, they suggested I use some soluble chemical to cure the leaves.
As a result, they are now in better condition and recovering.
What’s your biggest concern?
Of course, rainfall is still the number one concern for me. As I mentioned before, in Khon Kaen province farmers mostly rely on natural rainfall for almost every crop, including cane.
This month the cumulative rainfall is around 300-400mm while normally it should be 600mm by now and 1,200-1,400mm by the end of rainy season.
Rainy season is around the corner, so I hope that cane will develop more during this period.
