Optimal crop nutrient management for sugarcane production on sandy soil in the eastern of Thailand | การจัดการธาตุอาหารพืชที่เหมาะสมเพื่อการผลิตอ้อยในดินทรายภาคตะวันออก

To increase sugarcane production in present situation of costly chemical fertilizers, it a good nutrient management which is specified to production area is required. Therefore, the response of sugarcane to nutrient management in sandy soil in the Eastern part of Thailand had been investigated. The study aimed to get the mosteffectively recommendation of fertilizer application for sugarcane grown on sandy soils. The experiment was conducted on Sattahip (Sh) sandy soil, at Muang district, Rayong province. The experimental design was a split-split plot with 3 replications. Main plot was compresed of 2 soil improvements which were 1) without soil amendment, 2) amendment with 100 kg/rai of dolomite and 1,000 kg/rai of filtercake. Sub-plot consisted of 2 varieties of sugarcane i.e. LK92-11 and Khon Kaen 3. Sub-sub plot consisted of 4 fertilizer application rates i.e. 0-6-18, 9-6-18, 18-6-18,and 27-6-18 kg N-P2O5-K2O/rai. Results showed that the use of soil amendment, variety and fertilizer nitrogen affected sugarcane yield with significant differences. If sugarcane was grown without soil improvement, it would give a lower yield of 12.27 t/rai. The use of dolomite and filtercake as soil amendment was able to increase the yield up to 13.97 t/rai. Khon Kaen 3 variety, gave a higher yield of 14.11 t/rai compared to LK92-11 which was only 12.13 t/rai. Using nitrogen fertilizer clearly affected the productivity of sugarcane by enhancing tiller formation, height,and stalk yield which were observed at nitrogen application rate of 27 kg N/rai, Uptakes of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium of both sugarcane varieties were significantly different. Khon Kaen 3 variety had highles efficient use of nitrogen when compared to LK92-11. Sugarcane production on Sattahip sandy soils, without soil improvement should be applied with nitrogen fertilizer at the rate 9 kg N/rai for LK92-11 varieties and 27 N kg/rai for Khon Kaen 3. On the other hand with dolomite and filtercake amelioration, the nitrogen fertilizer application rate should be 9 kg N/rai for both varieties.