BT1 Long-term Sugarcane Trial
This experiment has been added by the GLTEN Curators using existing published sources.
- Local identifier
- BT1
- Years operational
- 1939—
- Objective
- To study residue management and fertiliser applications
- Description
- The BT1 trial is the world's oldest long-term sugarcane trial
- Data Access Statement
- Don't know
- Data license
- Don't know
- Data policy
- Don't know
- Organization
- South Africa Sugar Cane Research Instituteresearch organisation
- People
Site: BT1 site
- Type
- research station field
- Location
- BlackburnDurbanSouth Africa
- Geographic location
- -29.703174, 31.044104
- Elevation
- 99 Metres
- Slope
- 15° (SW facing)
- Visits permitted?
- No
- Soil type
- vertisol
- Soil properties
Variable Depth Value (range) Units Ref year Estimated? Baseline? soil pH (4.2 – 5.7) - Climate properties
Variable Time period Value (range) Units precipitation 950 millimeter air temperature 20.4 degree Celsius
Design period: (1939—)
- Description
- The trial was initially harvested at 24 months of age up to 1966, after which harvesting was changed to between 15 and 20 months. Since 1987 the trial has been harvested annually in spring.
- Design description
- The complete trial is composed of 32 plots divided in 4 columns and 8 rows. Plots measure 18 x 9.6m.
- Number of plots
- 32
- Number of replicates
- 4
- Crops
Crop Years grown sugarcane maize - Factors
- Factor name
- Factor levels
- crop residue management process
burning and tops retained
Burned at harvest with unburned tops scattered evenly over the soil surface.burning and tops removed
Burned at harvest with unburned tops removed.trashing and residues retained
Unburned at harvest with the residue retained on the soil surface to provide a mulch cover.- NPK fertilizer exposure
With fertilizer
Without fertilizer
- row intercropping With and without maize intercropping used between 1939 and 1948.
row intercropping with maize
no intercropping
- Measurements
Variable Material Units Frequency Scale Comment yield trait sugarcane soil properties Soil
Related publications
- Van Antwerpen, R., Meyer, J.H. and Turner, P.E.T., 2001. The effects of cane trash on yield and nutrition from the long-term field trial at Mount Edgecombe. In Proc. S. Afr. Sug. Technol. Ass (Vol. 75, pp. 235-241).
- Gaghik Hovhannissian, Pascal Podwojewski, Yann Le Troquer, Sandile Mthimkhulu, Rianto Van Antwerpen, 2019. Mapping spatial distribution of soil properties using electrical resistivity on a long term sugarcane trial in South Africa, Geoderma, Volume 349, Pages 56-67 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.04.037 [In English]