Stalk productivity and quality of three sugarcane varieties at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the harvest.

This paper evaluated the stalk productivity and quality of the RB961552 and RB98710 sugarcane varieties, compared with RB92579, during the cane-plant and regrowth cycles. The study was conducted in a random block experimental design with five repetitions. The plots composed of 7 furrows measuring 8 m in length with 1.0 m spacing. Juice quality from the lower, middle, and upper thirds of the industrialized stalks was evaluated at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the harvest. At the end of the harvest, industrialized stalk and sugar productivity was also quantified. In all the evaluation periods, RB961552 had a lower apparent sucrose level than the othe r two varieties. RB92579 and RB98710 only differed in the collections at the beginning of the harvest and in the first regrowth cycle, at which time RB98710 presented a higher sucrose level. RB92579 sugar production in the cane-plant and first regrowth cycles was 14.37 and 18.44%, respectively, and greater than the average for the RB961552 and RB98710 varieties