Climate Based Crop Advisor for: Sugarcane!

Cultivation of sugarcane in India had been started since the Vedic period. Sugarcane is perennial grass cultivated for its juice from which sugar is processed. Most of the World sugarcane is grown in tropical and subtropical areas.

India is the second-largest producer of sugar (17.1%) in the world after Brazil.

Within India:

1. Uttar Pradesh (36.1%)

2. Maharashtra (34.3%)

3. Karnataka (11.7%)

Are the three largest producers. Sugar production in India has increased from 24.8 million tonnes in 2015–16 to 32.25 million tonnes in 2017–18. In the agriculture sector, sugarcane share is about 7% of the total value of agricultural output and occupied about 2.6% of India’s gross cropped area.

It was observed that among the 16 selected problems, shortage and high wages of labor ranked first followed by the high price of inputs (seed, fertilizer, insecticide, pesticide), low price of cane, non-availability of fertilizer, pesticide in time; insect, pest and diseases; lack of clean seed, lack of mechanization in plantation, weeding, and harvesting; payment system of cane; getting a loan; irrigation and drainage system, lack of capital, lack of training facilities, non-cooperation from mills, lack of high yielding varieties, adverse climatic condition and difficulty in getting purji from mills.

Weather and climate-related events (i.e., the growth environment of atmospheric [CO2], temperature, precipitation, and other extreme weather) are the key factors for sugarcane production. Increases in atmospheric carbon concentration and peak temperatures has a larger impact on sugarcane production. A shift in temperature due to climate change will have an effect on some diseases, insects, and weeds in sugarcane production.

For example, incidence of smut disease caused by Sporisorium scitamineum is likely to increase due to high temperatures. Severe storms and hurricanes can spread leaf scald, caused by Xanthomonas albilineans. The more extreme weather events due to climate change have caused more overwintering pests (weeds and insects), more disease pathogens, and more input costs for reducing these risks to maintain a certain level of sugarcane production. The most devastating disease of sugarcane is the red rot disease, caused by the fungi Colletotrichum falcatum.It causes huge loss of 18–31% in sugarcane production.

Sat2Farm App

The challenge is to use state of technology to provide useful advice to farmers.At Satyukt we have developed a “android based” mobile application called Sat2Farm, where on successful upload of the farm, we provide near real time crop advisories “at farm scale” such as disease and pest, crop health stress, weather forecasting (rainfall, wind, relative humidity temperature). We also give early alerts for pest and disease attacks with crops based on weather data, so that farmers can have a close look at their farm and take necessary actions at the right time based on their crop health states.

App link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.satyukt.myfarmapp