Improved RSD management in Harwood leads to record yields

Improved RSD management in Harwood leads to record yields

Major changes in the management of ratoon stunting disease (RSD) at Harwood have resulted in record yields in 2015 and 2016. These changes, facilitated by an active extension campaign, involved increased availability of clean seed, preferential recommendations of resistant varieties, prioritisation of approved seed plot (ASP) billets, implementation of a billet delivery system, and changing to LSB-PCR as the RSD diagnostic test. The 2015 and 2016 yields of 151 t/ha and 146 t/ha respectively, are the highest consecutive yields recorded for Harwood, while the 2015 one year old yield of 120 t/ha was the highest on record. Comparison with Broadwater, which harvests a similar proportion of 2YO cane but is only beginning to adopt the RSD control measures deployed at Harwood, shows that in these years yields were lower by 15.5 t/ha and 18.2 t/ha, amounting to potential lost revenue of $2.9m and $3.6m respectively. If, as has been shown in Harwood and other areas, managing RSD leads to such significant yield gains, the incidence and the impacts of the disease must have been previously underestimated. This poster concludes that further, industry-wide gains can be made in RSD management by the production of resistant varieties.

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