Lynne Wong's PhD thesis

2.2.1 Experimental procedure
Cane materials and extraneous matter such as green leaves, dry leaves and bagasse were
obtained from neighbouring factories, and the experiments were carried out in the MSIRI
laboratory as described below.
2.2.1.1 Addition of green leaves, dry leaves and bagasse to cane sample
In the first trial, which was carried out late in the 2000 season, four whole canes which
were cane stalks with attached cane tops were sampled simultaneously with 40 kg cane
stalks. The tops of the whole cane (125 cm measured from the apex) were removed,
chipped and kept aside, while the four stalks were weighed and chipped together with the
40 kg sample of cane stalks. The four whole canes were then reconstituted by mixing the
chipped tops with the recorded mass of the homogenized chipped cane stalks. One
representative sample (1329 g) of the chipped whole cane was taken, 329 g of which was
analysed for pol % cane and fibre % cane by the STASM method (Anon., 1991). The
remaining one kg was subjected to a pressure of 20 MPa (200 bar) for two minutes in a
Pinette Emidecau hydraulic press to obtain juice for analysis of Brix, pol and Clerget
sucrose by the STASM method (Anon., 1991) and glucose, fructose and sucrose by high
performance ion chromatography (HPIC) using the official ICUMSA method (Schaffler,
1994).
After the reconstitution of the whole cane, the remaining chipped cane stalk served as a
control sample and material to which EM would be added. The control sample was
analysed as above.
Green leaves (2 kg) were shredded in a Jeffco cutter grinder, and added to sub-samples of
chipped cane stalks so that green leaves constituted 5, 10 and 20% of the total mass which
was 1329 g. The resulting samples were analysed as above.
The experiment was then repeated with shredded dry leaves (2 kg) added to the same
chipped cane sample.
The whole experiment was repeated four times.
In Trial II, the effect of the whole cane was not investigated. However, the effect of the
moisture content in the dry leaves was investigated. In order to vary the moisture content
in the dry leaves, four kg dry leaves were collected, two kg of which were subjected to a
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