Association of Economic Biologists

Under the auspices of the Association Dr.Van Der Veen who had been working for some years at the Sgarcane Research Station.Pasurvan.Java give an interesting lecture on Sugarcane cultivation in Java.In the course of his lecture he stated.'In Java there are about180 factories producing on an average 3millions tons of white sugar every year.The sugarcane area of Java is mainly confined to the middle and eastern portions of the island.The Western portion is not suitable because of too much of rain and some of the factories athat had been startedmany disases.Unlike in India,the factories in Java all grow their own canes in lands rented from the villagers.According to the existing rgulations no Euopean cane buy land in Java which is already under cultivation.The cultivation of cani in Java is all in the hands of people who have had specil trining in Agriculture in Europe and so is hihly scientific.The Java soils are all very rich being of volcanic origin.Even now due to the action of the volcanoes fresh rich clays are being formed in certain parts of the island.All the scientific and research work connected with sugarcane is carried on at Pasurvan in Eat Java and the Station is mainted by the research worj of thr station i diveded into a number of sectio n is maintained bythr owners of the sugar factories scattered in different parts of the island.The research work of the station is divided into a number sections with special laboratoires and a set of highly trained staff of workers.of the three main divisions of research work.that dealing with agriculture with agrigcalutu- re of the crop is by far the largest and the mosrt Important.Under this division come the seve ral branches like soil analysis,plant pathology,entomology,plant physiology,field experiments,selection and cytology.A good deal of work has already been done with regard to selection and manurial trials and the results obtained have in no small measure been responsible for the phenomenal tonnage of sugar per acre obtained in Java.The selection work is carried on under the guidance of Dr.Posthumus who had come to Coimbatore last year.It is from selection that such good types like P.O.J.2873 and 2883 which are largely grown in the middle part of Java have been obtained.The sub-division dealing with field experiments carry out nearly 2500 experiments every year on held by the factories.As an example of one of the important experiments may be mentioned that intended to determining of one of the important experiments may be mentioned that intended to different the most profitable amount of ammonium sulphate to be given to the crop.Experiments are also carried out where new selections made in the island or imported from outside are tested the local ones.Since the results obtained at Pasurvan are not all of universal application throughout the island a new sub-station has been opened in the western portion of the island where the conditions are found to br different.