Research carried out at the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture at the University of São Paul (Esalq-USP) found that sugarcane productivity can increase significantly by reducing the spacing between rows during planting.
The conclusion was based on a broad review of studies to gather experimental data and identify the most appropriate spacing in different climates and water regimes (irrigated or rainfed).
O study was developed by Leticia Gasparotto, guided by Fábio Marin, professor at the Department of Biosystems Engineering and researcher responsible for the project Brazilian agricultural efficiency atlas: quantifying the potential for sustainable intensification of Brazilian agriculture.
The research found that the row spacing of 90 centimeters (cm) presented the highest productivity for irrigated and rainfed treatments. The lowest average productivity values were between 150 and 180 cm, often used in countries with higher production depending on the climate zone and water regime.
“Despite greater productivity in reduced spacing, use is still limited mainly due to soil compaction and damage to sugarcane ratoons caused by the use of currently used planting and harvesting machinery”, says Gasparotto.
The research included a total of 28 relevant studies, which resulted in 170 field experiments in nine countries. Field experimental data were grouped based on climate similarity using hierarchical cluster analysis (or cluster analysis) for the rainfed and irrigated experiments. Analysis of variance was used to evaluate the variation between sugarcane productivity values and, subsequently, the Tukey test was applied to compare the productivity averages for each row spacing.
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