Evaluation of bagasse and filter mud as sources of organic matter on the quality and quantity of sugarcane.

IMPORTANT steps toward sustainable agriculture are recognition of an efficient way to increase the efficiency of chemical fertilisers, the use of animal and plant residues to supply a portion of the nutritional requirements of plants, and to address soil productivity in order to improve the consistency of agricultural production. The effects of different amounts of filter mud and bagasse applications, which have respectively 53.5 and 75 percent organic compounds, on quality and quantity of sugarcane yield in a complete randomised blocks design with 7 treatments and 3 blocks were investigated. Final results indicated that the treatments did not have any significant effect on most juice quality factors such as Brix, Pol % and refined sugar, but purity was reduced by all treatments. However, treatments that only had filter mud (T5 and specially T3) affected purity the least. Results also indicated that relative to the control treatment, the T3 treatment had the largest yield response (12 tonnes cane/ha). It was therefore concluded that filter mud was a very beneficial organic nutrient source for the production of sugarcane.