Responses of a Sugarcane (Sacharum offcinarum L.) Cultivar, Khon Kaen 3 to Limited Irrigation Rates

Abstract

This paper is the study of a sugarcane cultivar namely Khon Kaen 3 (KK 3) in response to limited water irrigating rate in order to maintain the yield. Experiment was designed as RCB with 4 replications and 5 treatments and was conducted at the Khon Kean Field Crops Research Center during June, 2008-October, 2009. The treatment were : 1) no irrigation, 2) irrigated 12 mm of water when cumulative evaporation reached 40 mm, 3) irrigated 24 mm of water when cumulative evaporation reached 40 mm, 4) irrigated 12 mm of water when cumulative evaporation reached 60 mm, and 5) irrigated 24 mm of water when cumulative evaporation reached 60 mm. KK 3 sugarcane cultivar planted on 19 June 2008, Evaporation rate was initially collected at 3 month after planting of sugarcane. Dripping irrigation was applied according to respective treatments. The results showed that sugarcane yields were likely the same when irrigating 24 mm of water either cumulative evaporation rate of 40 mm or 60 mm at 18.3 and 18.2 ton/rai. The cane yield with no irrigation treatment was 13.9 ton/rai which was significantly lower than irrigated treatments. However, there were to significant difference for the treatment of 12 mm irrigated in both cumulative evaporation rates of 40 and 60 nm that the yield were treatments 15.9 and 16.1 ton/rai. The different yields were entirely depened on number of harvested stalk. Irrigation resulted in increasing of number of leaves and stalks as well as internode elongation.