Section 2 - Sugar Research and Development Corporation

Section 3
RESEARCH PROJECT SUMMARIES
The section below summarises the projects completed in 2010–2011. Some
projects have been excluded due to their commercial-in-confi dence status.
Regional futures
Key
Performance
Indicator
Enhanced structure and functions
of regional sugarcane industry
value chains
Measure Demonstration of improved
integration of the industry value
chain within regions delivering
increased profi tability and more
effi cient use of capital based on
environmentally responsible and
safe business practices.
Harvest planning management tools
The Tully Sugar Limited milling district has large
geographical, varietal, and seasonal differences
in sugar yield. Growers were looking to increase
profi tability by capitalising on these differences,
but had to consider variety, crop class, crop age,
CCS, cane yield, and soil type simultaneously when
planning the harvest. Adding to the complexity is
the infl uence of large harvesting groups, high mill
crushing rates, and a wet tropical environment.
‘Harvest Plan’, developed by the growers in the
SRDC funded ‘Working Together for Our Future’
Action Group, indicated key drivers for growers
planning a harvest schedule.
Typically, growers vary this plan to take into
account the weather and transport logistics.
This complex decision making process can
be simplifi ed if growers are able to produce
a number of management scenarios using
decision support tools.
This project reviewed all the harvest planning
decision support tools available and revealed that
there were no ‘off the shelf’ solutions available.
However, it did fi nd that the CSIRO SugarMax
models could be adapted for use in harvest
planning for the Tully district. The SugarMax
tool was developed by previous SRDC projects
to provide increased capacity for growers to
learn from and adopt improved time-of-harvest
schedules (CGT001).
Increasing in-mill Near Infra Red (NIR)
effectiveness and communicating data
Advancement in precision agriculture (PA)
techniques offered an opportunity to improve
the productivity, profi tability and environmental
performance of the growing and harvesting
sector through the use of NIR generated data
to measure nutrient levels in prepared cane.
Field trials on two sites in the Burdekin region
and two sites in the Mackay region were soil
tested before varying rates of nutrients were
applied to each strip. Results of leaf tests were
used to establish any relationship between
in-fi eld management practices and the NIR
cane analysis after harvesting. A customised
Geographic Information System (GIS) application
established the link between analysis results
and the cane source. However, the trials failed
to establish a defi nitive link between in-fi eld
nutrient practices and NIR results.
The legacy of this project is the improved ability
to analyse data at a more refi ned spatial level
than previously possible. With this new level
of in-fi eld data recording, at least one new
project has been established that will analyse
the relationship between NIR derived nutrient
data and in fi eld management practices with
particular emphasis on mill mud application
rates (CSR038).
SRDC Annual Report 2010–2011 51