Sugarcane yield and
recovery trends in Pakistan have
shown a tremendous rise from 6.9 million tons from 1948-49 to 63.9 million tons
during 2007-08. The cane yield and recovery trends in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
provinces during the past 60 year’s period do not show reasonable improvement.
Cane yields have increased just by 50 to 60%, while sugar recoveries remained
consistent in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sugar mills recoveries in Punjab
show a little rise. Taking into consideration the existing yield and recoveries
in Indian Punjab (60 tha-1 / 9.60%) and Karnataka (80 tha-1 / 10.70%) the yield
and recovery levels attained by Pak Punjab (48 tha-1 / 8.9%) and Sindh (60
tha-1 - 933%) seem to be discouraging. It is a hard fact that Pakistan could
not make much development in yield and recovery improvement during past six
decades. Low yields are due to non adoption of improved production technology
and low recoveries are due to lesser area under quality varieties.
Unfortunately this very fact has been neglected in sugar mills development
plans.
Pakistan ranks on
6th position in cane acreage and production and has 14th position in sugar
production. However cane yield of the country is very low, with 48 tha-1 yield
it stands on 47th position amongst 105 cane growing countries. Similarly with
sugar yield of around 4 tons per hectare in Pakistan, it can not match the
leading cane growing countries, having yields of 6 to 13 tons per hectare. Pakistan
has established a strong base of sugar industry with installed capacity of
almost 6 million tons sugar production per annum, but is not in a position to
compete in international sugar trade, due to its high production cost. Sugar
production cost is affected by cane and sugar yields.
Varieties of
sugarcane play a important role in improving yield and recovery of sugar cane.
The yield is important for economic up lift of growers and the sugar recovery
of variety is the single most dominant factor that affects the economic
viability of sugar industry.
Leading problems of the
Pakistan Sugar Industry are:
- Lack of attention to develop quality raw material.
- Using out dated varieties with no regular
replacement.
- Unchecked spread of un-approved and un-wanted
varieties.
- Sugar recovery is not priority; main emphasis is on procurement of cane biomass.
Evolution and
development work on cane variety is carried out at the Government Research
Institutes established at Faisalabad (Punjab), Hyderabad & Thatta (Sindh)
and Mardan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Private sector has also stepped in this work.
This may be noted that Sugar Cane Research Institutes in Pakistan have no cane
breeding programme of their own. Cane fuzz (true seed) of un-known characters
is imported from various available resources, which could be USA or Australian.
Since supply of fuzz depends on donor country and un-assured funds
availability, variety selection programme is not consistent. Research
institutions in public sector are mostly starved of funds and private sector is
not serious in this issue.
Punjab is leading
among the three cane growing provinces of Pakistan, in cane variety evolution
programme. Sugar cane Research Institute, Faisalabad has released a number of
varieties since its origin. Shakarganj Research Institute- Jhang has also an
active variety selection programme and has evolved one variety as SPSG26.
Cane varieties in cultivation are: CPF
242, HSF 240, SPF 234, CPF 213, CPF 237, CoJ 84, Co1148, SPF 238, CP77-400,
CP43-33. The varieties Co 1148, CoJ 84, and SPF 238 are late maturing low sugar
varieties, SPF 338 gained popularity and spread fastly. In some of sugar mills
this variety brought down recovery level to around 7-8 percent. Industry is
trying to get rid of this variety, but in cane slump years sugar mills do not
stick to their policies and allow procurement. SPF 234 has been a major variety of
Southern Punjab and covered area to 90-95% raising sugar mills recovery upto
10.5%. During 2008-09, the variety got severely infected by rust. Now the industry
is left with only 4 or 5 varieties which too have selective adaptability in
different soils and climatic conditions.
The variety
evolution programme in Sindh is not encouraging. Provincial Research Institute,
Tandojam released its last variety (BF 129), during 1996. Nuclear Institute of
Agriculture, Tandojam, has released two cultivars, NIA 1998 and NIA 2004. One
variety Thatta 10 is developed by a PARC Sugar Crops Research Institute,
Thatta. The Sindh Sugar Industry is some how trying to meet its requirements by
unscientific and irregular introduction of varieties from Punjab (SPSG 26, SPF
234, CPF 237, HSF 240). Habib Sugar Mills making its own efforts to test
varieties for its tract. The cane
varieties under cultivation are: Th 10, BL 4, Triton, L116, BF 129, NIA 98, NIA
2004, SPSG 26, Larkana 2001, SPF 234, CPF 237, HS 12, Co 1148, CP 67-412,
Disco Research Institutes in Sindh does not have a strong base of germplasm
selection. In lower Sindh main varieties under cultivation are BL 4, BF 129,
Triton, Thatta 10, SPF 234; CPF 237 is a new introduction. The Larkana-2001 a
late maturity variety is confined in Larkana tract. In upper Sindh, Thatta 10,
CPF 67-412, L 116, HS 2, HS 12, Co 1148, Disco and SPF 234 are popular. HSF 240
and CPF 237 are new introductions. SPF 234 got infected by rust. Disco has been a notorious variety depressing
sugar recovery. Industry is trying to replace it with other varieties. Besides a famous area for cane flowering, Provincial Research Station is silent
on cane breeding work. PARC Research Station, Thatta works on open pollinated
fuzz; required infrastructure for cane breeding has not been developed.
Variety development
programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is slow as well and the province has quite a
few varieties to grow. Sugar industry has good quality as well as poor quality
cane. Cottage Industry of Gur is a big challenge to the sugar industry.
Generally it happens that the quality varieties are crushed for Gur and poor
quality cane is supplied to sugar mills. Due to low cane supplies and low sugar
varieties, the industry is in crisis of producing costliest sugar.
CP 77-400, the cane
variety released is now most popular variety covering about 75% cane area of
the province; Mardan 93 is also grown on large area under CP 51-21 and CP
65-357 is being reduced. In D.I.Khan region Co 1148 has been the major variety
under cultivation. The variety SPF 238 also spread like hot cake and efforts
are being made to replace it with HSF 240 and SPF 242.
It can be judged
that in Sindh, sugar mills growing quality varieties in larger proportion
attained higher sugar recoveries “Al-Abbas” (9.73%), “Khoski” (9.92%), while
the mills growing a large proportion of poor quality varieties attained low
recovery (“Sakrand” 8.0%). Similar pattern is observed in Punjab, where “JDW”
and “Hamza” growing SPF 234 on 95% and 90% area, respectively had 10.35% and
10.02% recovery as against 7.23% in “Crescent” sugar mills growing large area
under poor quality varieties.
Impacts of quality
varieties
- Reduction in the manufacture cost of sugar.
- Considerable reduction of Energy consumption for
various factory operations.
- Milling and processing losses are minimized.
- Overall recoveries in a factory have increased.
- Increased, sugar production efficiency level.
- Sugar recoveries have increased with increase in
total sugar production.
Future demand of
varieties:
- High sugar yield varieties to be grown at economic
cost.
- Supportive and Adaptable to sustain yields under
specific ecological conditions.
- Feasible to grow under biotech stresses, different
soil types and variable inputs.
- Suiting with the mechanization in cane culture.
- That meets the milling requirements of sugar
industry.
Limitations of the
research stations for variety evolution
- The country has no cane breeding programme.
- The research stations are depending on imported fuzz
and cultivars.
- The research stations do not have enough germplasm under observation.
- Most of the research stations have not enough area
for conducting variety trials and seed multiplication.
- Requisite promising lines are not in channel to meet
the site specific / emergent demand of sugar industry under any epidemic
conditions.
- Lacking facilities for rapid testing and evaluation
of varieties in out field trials.
Considering the
aforesaid facts, the first priority of sugar industry should be to establish a Sugar
Cane Breeding Institute.
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