Only with irrigation: rain gives too little of its water to count on
- Doesn't suit: Too dry without irrigation
- Suits: Ideal temperatures
- Suits: Soil 8/10
Why, and how to make it work Hide details
Water
Too dry to grow on rain alone. It would need irrigation.
Needs about 1,580 mm of water here in its growing months. Rain gives about 420 mm it can use in a normal year, and 390 mm in a dry year.
Temperature
Grows best at 24–37 °C on average, and survives 15–41 °C.
Here, in its growing months (day / night):
- Jun 37 °C / 26 °C
- Jul 30 °C / 24 °C
- Aug 30 °C / 24 °C
- Sep 30 °C / 23 °C
- Oct 30 °C / 19 °C
- Nov 27 °C / 14 °C (outside its best range)
- Dec 25 °C / 11 °C (outside its best range)
- Jan 24 °C / 10 °C (outside its best range)
- Feb 28 °C / 14 °C (outside its best range)
- Mar 33 °C / 18 °C
- Apr 38 °C / 22 °C
- May 40 °C / 26 °C
- Jun 37 °C / 26 °C
Months in orange are outside its best range.
Soil
Soil for Sugarcane: 8 out of 10 (good).
- The pH here suits it, though not most crops.
- Many fields here are short of nitrogen, which it needs a lot.
Likes pH 5.0–8.0.
How the soil score worksMoney
Yield: about 96 quintals an acre here (district figures).
Rain gives it too little of the water it needs, so there's no income figure on rain alone: grow it only with irrigation.
Priced at the government's fair and remunerative price for cane, ₹365 a quintal.
Prices are usually best in February.
Typical costs are about ₹61,000 an acre (seed, fertiliser, labour and hired machines, from the government's cost survey). They are spent whatever the harvest.
How to make it work
-
Short of nitrogen Your soil is likely short of nitrogen.
Add about a quarter more urea than the usual dose, in two or three splits. A pulse crop in rotation also adds nitrogen.
About 100% of local fields of this crop get it.
What local farmers put on it (share of fields):
- Urea 100%
- Single Super Phosphate (SSP) 41%
- Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) 28%
- Triple Super Phosphate (TSP) 19%