Legumes key to cane disease’s elimination
A RETIRED soil expert is using legumes to defeat a devastating sugar cane disease and grow heavier crops in the Far North.
Townsville-based consultant Rod Karger, 73, has made it his mission to eliminate yellow canopy syndrome from the sugarcane industry.
The former Horticulture South Australia soil agronomist is convinced he has the perfect recipe for rehabilitating soil and improving crop returns.
Mr Karger said adding lime, growing legumes and establishing trace elements in the soil were the key to reducing acidity levels in Far Northern cane country.
“Some of these soils are hard as a rock,” he said.
“The soils are too acidic and very unhealthy for us. The worst I have ever seen and consequently there is no microfauna population.”
Yellow canopy syndrome is a condition that turns crops yellow and reduces yields by up to 70 per cent.
The disease is the target of sugar cane researchers across the country.
Mr Karger said one of the main issues was the biological life in the soil with an increased presence of earthworms known to improve soil structure. He said run-off to the Reef was also reduced.
“Water virtually went straight and any run-off was clean as a whistle,” he said.
Mr Karger said every farmer who had applied his technique was now cutting heavier cane and was yellow canopy-free.
Third-generation cane farmer Max Wilkins, who runs Mirriwinni Lime south of Cairns, has used Mr Karger’s strategy at his 324ha property for years.
He said he fetched about $30 more for each tonne of cane harvested.
“I put out the stuff he recommended and left control areas,” he said. “It was 12 tonnes to the acre more cane through the trace elements.”
Mr Wilkins said it was about getting the balance right.
Ingham farmer Fred Gangemi has increased cane production from 113tk per hectare to about 175t ha using the technique.
He prepared a 16ha paddock and planted it in cane in September last year. Mr Gangemi planted the legume known as marenga in his paddock.