How the climate, the cultivation of sugarcane and the soil interact in a given period and how environmental aspects such as solar radiation affect the physiology of the plant are some of the research tasks that will be strengthened in Cenicaña with the start-up from the physiology area within the Agronomy Program.
How the climate, the cultivation of sugarcane and the soil interact in a given period and how environmental aspects such as solar radiation affect the physiology of the plant are some of the research tasks that will be strengthened in Cenicaña with the start-up from the physiology area within the Agronomy Program.
The creation of this area arises from the need to have more precise explanations about the behavior of sugarcane cultivation in the geographical valley of the Cauca River and, in this way, offer cultivators and mills cultivation practices more in line with the growth and development of the plant and support the obtaining of even more productive and efficient varieties in the use of water.
"In this case, physiology comes to be like an internist who will explain the operation of an entire organism, which will serve as a basis for other specialists to make interpretations," explained Jairo Clavijo PhD. and advisor to Cenicaña in physiology.
One of the first projects in which work will begin is the physiological characterization of sugarcane in varieties CC 85-92, CC 93-4418, CC 01-1940 in the dry-semi-dry environment. Today the Colombian sugar sector has an agronomic description of the cane, which has served as the basis for the scientific work carried out, but the physiological characterization of the plant will allow us to observe and evaluate in detail the changes that it undergoes over time due to the conditions to which it is subjected.
"In the medium and long term, research will seek to increase knowledge on topics such as water use efficiency, growth and development, interception of solar radiation and synthesis and distribution of biomass and sucrose by the crop, to contribute to the construction of the simulation model that Cenicaña is already carrying out ”, explained Miguel Angel López M., Cenicaña physiologist.
For his part, Javier Carbonell, director of the Agronomy Program, assured that the area is also working on other projects that the entity is currently carrying out, such as nutrient absorption curves, percentage of irrigated area, distance between furrows and effects of compaction such as a parameter for the characterization of varieties.
KEEP IN MIND
The productivity of sugar cane is closely associated with the amount of radiation absorbed by the plant and the efficiency with which the radiation is converted to biomass and sucrose.
