Assessment of Distillery Spent Wash Water as a Potential Bionutrient Supplement for Spring-Planted Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) [RESEARCH NOTE]

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the combined application of the sugar industry by-product spent wash water (SWW) and inorganic fertilizers on the growth, yield and quality of spring-planted sugarcane. The experiment was conducted for two consecutive years (2013 and 2014) in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The combined application of spent wash water (80 t ha-1) + NPK (84:56:56 kg ha-1) markedly increased the leaf area index, crop growth rate, net assimilation rate and total dry matter of millable canes, cane length (cm), weight per stripped cane (kg), and yield of unstripped and stripped cane compared with the other treatments. Moreover, the reduction in spent wash water and NPK rate substantially decreased the quantitative attributes of the crop. Owing to the increase in growth and quantitative traits, the application of spent wash water and NPK considerably increased the quality parameters such as brix (%), sucrose content in cane juice (%), sugar recovery (%) and total sugar yield. Moreover, the maximum improvement for quality parameters was obtained in the spent wash (80 t ha-1) + NPK (84:56:56 kg ha-1) treatment. Results of the study showed that application of spent wash (80 t ha-1) + NPK (84:56:56 kg ha-1) can effectively improve the growth, yield and quality of spring-planted sugarcane.