Pune-based Baramati Agro has started experimenting with sugar beet — a plant whose root has a high concentration of sucrose — for the production of sugar this season in its mill in Baramati taluka. Almost 30 per cent of the sugar produced in the world is from sugar beet. Advertising Rohit Pawar, chief executive officer, said for the trial run, the company has undertaken cultivation of around 150 acres of sugar beet. The crop will be ready for harvest by February or March next year. Pawar said along with cultivation of sugar beet, they are also experimenting with various types of irrigation systems. Shivajirao Deshmukh, director general of the Pune-based Vasantdada Sugar Institute, said the beet can be used to extend the crushing period during seasons of cane scarcity. “The per acre yield of the beet is around 30-35 tonnes but unlike cane, it is ready in a shorter period of time,” he said. Another major factor is that the crop’s water requirement is almost 50 per cent lesser than cane. The average sugar recovery from such beet is 11-12 per cent, which is almost at par with the recovery from cane in arid areas. Field trials of sugar beet have been undertaken earlier by Rana Sugars Limited, a Punjab-based sugar mill that cultivated this beet on over 8,000 acres of land, said Deshmukh. Advertising To extract sugar from the beet, an existing sugar mill needs to be retrofitted with a diffuser. While the requisite machinery usually costs around Rs 2.5 crore, the process also uses 25 per cent less energy than cane-related extraction processes. “Under-capacity crushing is a major problem for mills and this beet can be useful in such cases,” said Deshmukh. The beet can be used as a substitute raw material for ethanol production as well. Pawar said Baramati Agro will procure beet from farmers at the same price as cane. “This is our first experiment with beet and it is aimed at extending the crushing season,” he said. This year, drought conditions and the attack of white grub is all set to reduce cane availability for millers in Maharashtra. Till date, the 175 mills in operation have crushed 278.36 lakh tonnes of cane and produced 28.28 lakh tonnes of sugar.

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