Effect of post-harvest cleaning on cane yield

In-field cane loss is well recognised as a major source of sucrose loss. Strategies to reduce that cane loss typically involve reducing the harvester forward speed and the extractor-fan speed. Reducing harvester forward speed generally increases the cost of harvesting, while reducing extractor-fan speed generally increases the extraneous matter content of the cane supply. Efforts are being made to promote this lower speed strategy. An alternative strategy to reducing harvester forward speed is to introduce a post-harvest cane cleaning operation. Post-harvest cleaning has the potential to address the problem of increased extraneous matter content in the cane supply while maintaining the benefits of lower harvesting cost and lower cane loss. This paper reports on experiments conducted to test the strategy of post-harvest cleaning as a means of simultaneously achieving reduced in-field cane loss, low extraneous matter content in the cane supply and low harvesting cost. The experiments were conducted using Tableland cane supplies. Cane, billet and CCS yields were measured under cane-supply strategies with and without post-harvest cleaning. While the experiments confirmed that reduced harvester extractor-fan speed reduced cane loss and increased extraneous matter content, post-harvest cane cleaning did not achieve the desired objective of maintaining that reduced cane loss.