The current Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) planting programme has been reduced by more than 50% due to the water shortages caused by El Nino weather pattern, according to GuySuCo’s Agriculture Services Manager Raymond Sangster, who says next year’s crop yield will be negatively affected.
According to a Government Informa-tion Agency (GINA) report, Sangster said the growth of the sugar cane has virtually stopped due to the dry weather.
In addition, he said GuySuCo has not yet reached the stage of revising production targets but if the current conditions continue for the next three months, it would “definitely have an impact on the second half of this year’s crop.”
While under normal conditions canes will grow an average of one centimetre (cm) daily, it was noted that the dry weather has resulted in the plants growing less than 0.2 cm. “This is less than 20% of the growth rate expected,” Sangster was quoted as saying.
This figure was obtained via the weekly monitoring conducted by field staff and technicians of the company.
Describing sugar as a “water crop” because of its high water content of about 80%, Sangster noted that it has to be grown in a free draining environment.
A lack of rainfall and a serious drop in the level of the conservancies, creeks and canals that are used to irrigate the crop are also expected to contribute negatively to the first crop of 2017. The release states that GuySuCo has implemented several measures to cope with the lack of water. These include reducing its planting programme as well as efforts to recycle water as far as possible.
“On estates like Albion and Rose Hall, and we have started some at Enmore, and at Blairmont, we are putting back the drainage water into the navigation system. Areas that are not going to be used for the coming crop… we are isolating those areas. This is so we can reduce the spread of the water,” Sangster said.
According to Sangster, an average of five to seven millimetres of water is lost daily through evaporation. This amount equates to around 1.5 inches per week and the intermittent rainfall is not significant at all.
Emphasising that the current situation is being monitored on a daily basis and that an evaluation will be done if the conditions become more critical, Sangster shared his optimism that the expected May/June rains, “which have never failed, will come.”
Once this happens, GuySuCo will benefit, with cane growth returning to normalcy. However, if this does not happen, GuySuCo will be in “serious trouble,” he opined.
