An increasing demand for food together with a growing demand for energy crops result in an increasing demand for and competition over water. Sugar cane, sugar beet and maize are not only essential food crops, but also important feedstock for bio-ethanol. Crop growth requires water, a scarce resource. This study aims to assess the green, blue and grey water footprint (WF) of sweeteners and bio-e...

BACKGROUND This study aims to chemically characterize thin stillage derived from lignocellulosic biomass distillation residues in terms of organic strength, nutrient, and mineral content. The feasibility of performing anaerobic digestion on these stillages at mesophilic (40 °C) and thermophilic (55 °C) temperatures to produce methane was demonstrated. The microbial communities involved were fur...

Results are reported of six plant and three ratoon crop experiments in which the practice of applying a clear polyethylene film (PE film) to sugarcane was evaluated. A yield response to PE film was obtained in three out of the six plant crop experiments but there was no response to a PE film applied to ratoon cane. In five plant cane and in one ratoon cane experiment, substantial improvements i...

Laterally connected vascular bundles in the nodes of sugarcane (Saccharum species cv. Pindar) stalks allow a rapid redistribution of water across the stalk should the vascular continuity be partly disrupted. Tritiated water supplied to the roots exchanged rapidly between the xylem and storage tissue so that net movement up the stalk was slow. The half-time for exchange in a labeled stalk was ab...

This study was performed in order to evaluate the effect of dried yeast from sugar cane when replacing soybean meal in dairy heifers’ diets. Twenty-four heifers, with an initial body weight (BW) of 178 kg, were distributed in a completely randomized design. The treatments were four levels of inclusion of dried yeast from sugar cane replacing to soybean meal (0, 33, 67 and 100% on a dry matter (...

the use of fertilizers npk and amendments in sugar cane crops may change the heavy metalsconcentrations in soils, making them available for plants and, consequently, they can be transferred to thehuman food chain. this study describes the redistribution of heavy metals (cd, cr, cu, ni, pb and zn) in soils with sugar cane crops due to fertilizers npk and amendments at corumbataí river basin, são...

This study models the amount of water stored in the millable stalk as a function of the dry weight of the stalk structures and of the stored sucrose. The correlation was highly significant (r=0.98, n=30). Structural material was equated to the difference between the stalk total dry weight and sucrose. Knowing the effect of the water deficit on the water content of the cane, the deficits were co...

The objective of this study was to evaluate low and high Brix diets, treated or not with 5 g of calcium oxide per kg of natural matter, and corn silage on intake, digestibility and performance of beef cattle. Forty cattle with initial body weight (BW) of 350 kg were used: five composed the control group, 30 were distributed into random blocks (control) and the other five were distributed in a 5...

Deteriorated sugarcane can lead to processing difficulties in the factory and to high levels of unwanted compounds in the raw sugar, with some extending to refined sugar. A high level of dextran is one of the more serious processing problems in a sugar factory that is associated with deteriorated cane. The development of a rapid test to measure an indicator of the ‘amount of deterioration’ coul...