Indexing of sugar cane lands in Mauritius: I. Food crop suitability and production potential of miller-planters' lands
| MSI99P1629 | |
| Govinden, N. Ramasamy, S. | |
| Indexing of sugar cane lands in Mauritius: I. Food crop suitability and production potential of miller-planters' lands | |
| Periodical article | |
| 1994 | |
| Revue agric. sucr. Ile Maurice | |
| 73(3): 11-20 | |
| Published 1995 | |
| En | |
| En Fr | |
| In the course of the land index project initiated in 1984, a database has been created on the climatic, physical and agronomic characteristics of miller-planters cane fields. By comparingthese characteristics and other complementary information gathered through field visits and interviews of estate agronomists, the suitability of each individual cane field was e stablished for potato, maize and groundnut. Hence, the area suitable for these food crops was calculated. Island wide, about 65 per cent of miller-planters' cane lands are suitable for one or the other food crop in the first season and about 50 per cent in the second season. The dates of cane harvesting and replanting were retrieved from the 1991, 1992 and 1993 updated files and were matched with the planting dates of the food crops in order to determine the land area that is available for planting the food crops each year. The results indicate that only about 12 per cent of the suitable land was actually available as plant cane; this corresponds to the average cane crop cycle of 8 years. Availability of land under ratoons was about 19 per cent because 75 per cent of the fields were under 3rd or older ratoons and 5 per cent were harvested at dates that do not coincide with the planting dates of the food crops. More land would become available if sugar cane were to be replanted more frequently and if the cane harvest dates were to be more closely matched to those of the food crops. The area available was multiplied by the current average yields to estimate the production potential of miller planters' lands. If all the available lands were to be used, about 31 000 tonnes of potato, 7 000 tonnes of maize and 2 500 tonnes of groundnut could be produced every year. Once the suitability for other crops, such as tomato and bean, is determined, it will be then possible to use the same approach to estimate the production potential for other crop combinations. | |
| PRODUCTION POTENTIAL LAND USE POTATOES GROUNDNUTS MAIZE LAND RESOURCES SUGARCANE INTERCROPPING ROTATIONS MILLER PLANTERS | |
| MAURITIUS | |
| Land use and management | |
| Agricultural diversification | |
| 1995-05-05 | |
| En | |
| LIB | |
| CAT | |
| FC |