Reducing the risk of herbicide runoff in sugarcane farming through controlled traffic and early-banded application

The off-site transport of agricultural chemicals, such as herbicides, into freshwater and marine ecosystems is a world-wide concern. The adoption of farm management practices that minimise herbicide transport in rainfall-runoff is a priority for the Australian sugarcane industry, particularly in the coastal catchments draining into the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lagoon. In this study, residual herbicide runoff and infiltration were measured using a rainfall simulator in a replicated trial on a brown Chromosol with 90–100% cane trash blanket cover in the Mackay Whitsunday region, Queensland. Management treatments included conventional 1.5 m spaced sugarcane beds with a single row of sugarcane (CONV) and 2 m spaced, controlled traffic sugarcane beds with dual sugarcane rows (0.8 m apart) (2mCT). The aim was to simulate the first rainfall event after the application of the photosynthesis inhibiting (PSII) herbicides ametryn, atrazine, diuron and hexazinone, by broadcast (100% coverage, on bed and furrow) and banding (50–60% coverage, on bed only) methods. These events included heavy rainfall 1 day after herbicide application, considered a worst case scenario, or rainfall 21 days after application. The 2mCT rows had significantly (P < 0.05) less runoff (38%) and lower peak runoff rates (43%) than CONV rows for a rainfall average of 93 mm at 100 mm h−1 (1:20 yr Average Return Interval). Additionally, final infiltration rates were higher in 2mCT rows than CONV rows, with 72 and 52 mm h−1 respectively. This resulted in load reductions of 60, 55, 47, and 48% for ametryn, atrazine, diuron and hexazinone from 2mCT rows, respectively. Herbicide losses in runoff were also reduced by 32–42% when applications were banded rather than broadcast. When rainfall was experienced 1 day after application, a large percentage of herbicides were washed off the cane trash. However, by day 21, concentrations of herbicide residues on cane trash were lower and more resistant to washoff, resulting in lower losses in runoff. Consequently, ametryn and atrazine event mean concentrations in runoff were approximately 8 fold lower at day 21 compared with day 1, whilst diuron and hexazinone were only 1.6–1.9 fold lower, suggesting longer persistence of these chemicals. Runoff collected at the end of the paddock in natural rainfall events indicated consistent though smaller treatment differences to the rainfall simulation study. Overall, it was the combination of early application, banding and controlled traffic that was most effective in reducing herbicide losses in runoff. Crown copyright © 2012

Pulp and paper production from sugarcane bagasse

The pulp and paper industry is very large and is now well in excess of $200 billion (FAO 2009). Estimates for the amount of bagasse used in the production of pulp and paper products vary but the general consensus is that it accounts for 2–5% of global production, making it one of the highest revenue earners for the global sugarcane industry.

Cultivating C4 crops in a changing climate: sugarcane in Ghana

Over the next few decades, it is expected that increasing fossil fuel prices will lead to a proliferation of energy crop cultivation initiatives. The environmental sustainability of these activities is thus a pressing issue—particularly when they take place in vulnerable regions, such as West Africa. In more general terms, the effect of increased CO2 concentrations and higher temperatures on biomass production and evapotranspiration affects the evolution of the global hydrological and carbon cycles. Investigating these processes for a C4 crop, such as sugarcane, thus provides an opportunity both to extend our understanding of the impact of climate change, and to assess our capacity to model the underpinning processes. This paper applies a process-based crop model to sugarcane in Ghana (where cultivation is planned), and the São Paulo region of Brazil (which has a well-established sugarcane industry). We show that, in the Daka River region of Ghana, provided there is sufficient irrigation, it is possible to generate approximately 75% of the yield achieved in the São Paulo region. In the final part of the study, the production of sugarcane under an idealized temperature increase climate change scenario is explored. It is shown that doubling CO2 mitigates the degree of water stress associated with a 4 °C increase in temperature.

Biochemical and physiological responses of sugarcane cultivars to soil water deficiencies

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Incorporation of hydrogen production process in a sugar cane industry: Steam reforming of ethanol

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

The Benefits of Sugarcane Chain Development in Africa

As consumers continue to be concerned about the future of sustainable agriculture and the scarcity of natural resources, biofuels can be an important component of the "people" solution through job creation, development and interiorizing economic activities of a country through moving money from cities into rural areas. The Brazilian sugarcane industry is well developed in terms of corporate social responsibility and can serve as an example for other countries such as Africa. The objective of this article is to show how sugar cane can contribute to the development of Africa by producing renewable fuel for use in booming African cities. A supply of sugar can be developed for use in local markets and exports. Other opportunities exist to produce bioelectricity from the process of burning the bagasse and other new products such as plastic and diesel. In the case of Ethanol, this fuel has proven to be the most efficient in competing with gasoline in the last 40 years, and Africa may gain with a strategic plan on ethanol.

Culture independent analysis of greyback canegrub-associated microflora and microbial community comparison using subtractive hybridisation

Greyback canegrubs cost the Australian sugarcane industry around $13 million per annum in damage and control. A novel and cost effective biocontrol bacterium could play an important role in the integrated pest management program currently in place to reduce damage and control associated costs. During the course of this project, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP), 16-S rDNA cloning, suppressive subtractive hybridisation (SSH) and entomopathogen-specific PCR screening were used to investigate the little studied canegrub-associated microflora in an attempt to discover novel pathogens from putatively-diseased specimens. Microflora associated with these soil-dwelling insects was found to be both highly diverse and divergent between individual specimens. Dominant members detected in live specimens were predominantly from taxa of known insect symbionts while dominant sequences amplified from dead grubs were homologous to putativelysaprophytic bacteria and bacteria able to grow during refrigeration. A number of entomopathogenic bacteria were identified such as Photorhabdus luminescens and Pseudomonas fluorescens. Dead canegrubs prior to decomposition need to be analysed if these bacteria are to be isolated. Novel strategies to enrich putative pathogen-associated sequences (SSH and PCR screening) were shown to be promising approaches for pathogen discovery and the investigation of canegrubsassociated microflora. However, due to inter- and intra-grub-associated community diversity, dead grub decomposition and PCR-specific methodological limitations (PCR bias, primer specificity, BLAST database restrictions, 16-S gene copy number and heterogeneity), recommendations have been made to improve the efficiency of such techniques. Improved specimen collection procedures and utilisation of emerging high-throughput sequencing technologies may be required to examine these complex communities in more detail. This is the first study to perform a whole-grub analysis and comparison of greyback canegrub-associated microbial communities. This work also describes the development of a novel V3-PCR based SSH technique. This was the first SSH technique to use V3-PCR products as a starting material and specifically compare bacterial species present in a complex community.

A new multi-objective model to optimise rail transport scheduler

The sugarcane transport system plays a critical role in the overall performance of Australia’s sugarcane industry. An inefficient sugarcane transport system interrupts the raw sugarcane harvesting process, delays the delivery of sugarcane to the mill, deteriorates the sugar quality, increases the usage of empty bins, and leads to the additional sugarcane production costs. Due to these negative effects, there is an urgent need for an efficient sugarcane transport schedule that should be developed by the rail schedulers. In this study, a multi-objective model using mixed integer programming (MIP) is developed to produce an industry-oriented scheduling optimiser for sugarcane rail transport system. The exact MIP solver (IBM ILOG-CPLEX) is applied to minimise the makespan and the total operating time as multi-objective functions. Moreover, the so-called Siding neighbourhood search (SNS) algorithm is developed and integrated with Sidings Satisfaction Priorities (SSP) and Rail Conflict Elimination (RCE) algorithms to solve the problem in a more efficient way. In implementation, the sugarcane transport system of Kalamia Sugar Mill that is a coastal locality about 1050 km northwest of Brisbane city is investigated as a real case study. Computational experiments indicate that high-quality solutions are obtainable in industry-scale applications.

Simultaneous biosorption of methylene blue and trivalent chromium onto olive stone

In this work, olive stone (OS) was utilized to investigate its capacity as biosorbent for methylene blue (MB) and Cr(III), which are usually present in textile industry effluents. Equilibrium and kinetic experiments were performed in batch experiments. The biosorption process followed pseudo-second-order kinetics. The equilibrium data were fitted with several models, but Langmuir and Sips models best reproduced the experimental results. Maximum biosorption capacities were 3.296 mg/g (0.0116 mmol/g) and 4.990 mg/g (0.0960 mmol/g) for MB and Cr(III), respectively. Several operation variables, such as
biosorbent mass, flow rate, and initial concentration on the removal of dye and metal, were evaluated in column system. The removal efficiency improved as OS mass increased and decreased when flow rate and initial concentration increased. Also, MB uptake was substantially decreased by increasing the initial concentration of Cr(III), ranging from 6.09 to 2.75 mg/g. These results show that the presence of Cr(III) significantly modifies the biosorption capacity of MB by the OS. These results suggest that OS is a potential low-cost food industry waste for textile industry wastewater treatment.

Uso de operações estruturadas para financiamento de projetos no setor sucroenergético brasileiro

O setor sucroenergético brasileiro passou por um intenso ciclo de crescimento nos últimos anos. Ainda assim, a demanda de etanol no país continua a superar a capacidade de produção, principalmente devido ao sucesso dos carros flex-fuel. As usinas voltaram também a atenção à bioeletricidade, aos alcoolquímicos e a diversos outros subprodutos e coprodutos do processo de produção de açúcar e etanol. Por estes motivos, se faz necessária a realização de maiores investimentos em ampliação e modernização das atuais usinas, e no aumento do número de unidades de produção. Para que tais investimentos sejam realizados da maneira mais eficiente, é necessário conhecer todas as opções de linhas de crédito disponíveis. Uma delas, pouco usada e com bons resultados é a Structured Project Finance. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo discutir o modelo de Structured Project Finance e apresentá-lo como uma possível alternativa de financiamento de projetos de usinas de açúcar e etanol no Brasil. Sua principal contribuição é apresentar uma alternativa de financiamento que agregue mais valor ao negócio.

A reestruturação do setor sucroenergético no Brasil: uma análise do período entre 2005 e 2011

O mundo está diante do desafio de reduzir as emissões de gases do efeito estufa (GEEs) e encontrar fontes renováveis de energia, na busca da segurança energética. Os biocombustíveis são uma alternativa viável e, nesse sentido, o Brasil deu um exemplo para mundo ao criar o Proálcool em 1975, que foi um programa bem sucedido de substituição da gasolina pelo etanol produzido a partir da cana-de-açúcar. Essa iniciativa contou com a participação do Governo Brasileiro no incentivo e na regulamentação do setor sucroenergético. A partir da sua liberalização em 1999, a indústria canavieira passou por uma importante reestruturação. Este estudo teve como objetivo descrever esse movimento e analisar suas possíveis consequências para o setor. Para isso, foi realizada uma pesquisa sobre a reestruturação da indústria canavieira, entre 1999 e 2011, dando ênfase aos dois ciclos de operações de Fusões & Aquisições ocorridos nesse período. Como principais resultados têm-se a consolidação dos maiores grupos de usinas da Região Centro Sul, que aumentaram a sua participação na moagem de cana e ampliaram suas estruturas produtivas por meio da aquisição de usinas concorrentes e da construção de greenfields. Além disso, foi possível observar o rápido crescimento da participação do capital estrangeiro, juntamente com a entrada de grupos de outros setores industriais. A reestruturação terá consequências positivas para o Brasil, principalmente pela profissionalização do setor sucroenergético e pela capacidade de retomar o ritmo de crescimento da produção de cana-de-açúcar, que foi interrompido pela crise financeira mundial de 2008. Para isso, será necessário investir na ampliação dos canaviais e também na construção de novas usinas.

Gerenciamento de riscos de mercado em uma perspectiva corporativa: análise do setor sucroenergético no Brasil

Este trabalho objetiva analisar e contribuir com o gerenciamento de riscos de preços dentro da indústria sucroenergética brasileira, mais especificamente da região Centro-Sul do país, que é a maior processadora de cana-de-açúcar de todo o mundo. Esta indústria tem características peculiares, tanto quanto às formas de comercialização de seus produtos finais – notadamente o açúcar e o etanol – quanto de sua estrutura de custos, onde a cana-de-açúcar representa algo da ordem de 70% do custo total de produção destes produtos. Assim, a proposição aqui implícita passa por uma abordagem específica para o gerenciamento de riscos de preços destas empresas, definindo como principal fator de risco o distanciamento entre os preços das vendas de açúcar travados em mercado organizado de futuros frente aos preços do açúcar apurados dentro da metodologia Consecana e que formam os preços do principal insumo produtivo destas empresas, a cana-de-açúcar. Assim, com uma abordagem empírica é feita uma análise sobre uma amostra de 1.138 ações de fixações de preços ocorridas durante o ano-safra 2012-13, revelando um comportamento de atuação no mercado futuro por parte destas empresas de maximização do valor da firma. Além disso, serão identificados os principais fatores idiossincráticos e sistêmicos que influenciam o retorno que estas empresas obtêm da comercialização de açúcar para o exterior, bem como os fatores que influenciam a tomada de decisão por parte destas empresas.

Influência da adição de cinza do bagaço de cana calcinada em sistemas de pastas para cimentação de poços petrolíferos

Cementing operation is one of the most important stages in the oil well drilling processes and has main function to form hydraulic seal between the various permeable zones traversed by the well. However, several problems may occur with the cement sheath, either during primary cementing or during the well production period. Cements low resistance can cause fissures in the cement sheath and compromise the mechanical integrity of the annular, resulting in contamination of groundwater and producing zones. Several researches show that biomass ash, in particular, those generated by the sugarcane industry have pozzolanic activity and can be added in the composition of the cementing slurries in diverse applications, providing improvements in mechanical properties, revenue and cement durability. Due to the importance of a low cost additive that increases the mechanical properties in a well cementing operations, this study aimed to potentiate the use of sugarcane bagasse ash as pozzolanic material, evaluate the mechanisms of action of this one on cement pastes properties and apply this material in systems slurries aimed to cementing a well with 800 m depth and geothermal gradient of 1.7 °F/100 ft, as much primary cementing operations as squeeze. To do this, the ash beneficiation methods were realized through the processes of grinding, sifting and reburning (calcination) and then characterization by X-ray fluorescence, XRD, TG / DTG, specific surface area, particle size distribution by laser diffraction and mass specific. Moreover, the ash pozzolanic activity added to the cement at concentrations of 0%, 20% and 40% BWOC was evaluated by pozzolanic activity index with lime and with Portland cement. The evaluation of the pozzolanic activity by XRD, TG / DTG and compressive strength confirmed the ash reactivity and indicated that the addition of 20% in the composition of cement slurries produces improvement 34% in the mechanical properties of the slurry cured. Cement slurries properties evaluated by rheological measurements, fluid loss, free fluid, slurry sedimentation, thickening time and sonic strength (UCA) were satisfactory and showed the viability of using the sugarcane ash in cement slurries composition for well cementing

Efeito simultâneo da deficiência hídrica e do alumínio tóxico no solo na cultivar IAC91-5155 de cana-de-açúcar

Sugarcane is a very important economic crop in Brazil. The effects of abiotic stresses cause negative reduction of the productivity in the sugarcane industry. In order to identify indicators of stresses tolerance, two physiological variables were evaluated, nitrate reductase activity and chlorophyll contents in young plants of sugarcane, cv. IAC91-5155. The simultaneous effect of abiotic stresses of high occurrence in Brazilian soils are, water deficiency and aluminum toxicity. The plants were submitted to three treatments of water availability (% field capacity, FC): no stress (70% FC), moderate stress (55% FC), and extreme stress (40% FC); and three acidity treatments in the soil (base saturation, V%): no acidity (V=55%), average acidity (V=33%), and high acidity (V=23%). The experiment was carried out in greenhouse, with 29.7 +/- 4.3 degrees C and 75 +/- 10% RH. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, in 3x3 factorial arrangement, with four replicates. After 60 days, nitrate reductase activity and chlorophyll contents were evaluated in the diagnostic leaf. The results demonstrate that the response of plants to a combination of drought and aluminum toxicity, similar to the conditions in many natural environments, is different from the response of plants to each of these stresses applied individually, as typically tested in the laboratory. The nitrate reductase activity can be used as a biochemical-physiological marker of water deficiency while chlorophyll contents can be used as a biochemical-physiological marker of both of them, water deficiency or aluminum toxicity in soil. Both parameters can not be as a biochemical-physiological marker for acclimation of young plants of sugarcane cv. IAC91-5155, under the combined stresses.