Albion Estate to begin first crop harvesting today

-Uitvlugt, Blairmont to follow soon

The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has announced that the Albion Sugar Estate will start harvesting its 2021 first crop today.

CEO Mr. Sasenarine Singh told DPI that the Albion estate has started the first crop, while the Uitvlugt estate is set to start its burning process in three days and the Blairmont Sugar Estate would follow immediately after.

As is customary during this period and with all hands-on deck, the Albion estate earlier today, successfully burnt some 200 punts of sugar canes.

“[This] is a very good position to be because when you start the crop around this time it means when the May-June rain comes, you would have been able to clear the designated land in time based on the harvesting plan, so that you don’t have this process happening. That is the worst possible thing you can do to a sugar field. Going in with tractors in the muddy dam, it destroys a critical aspect of the sugar industry which is the access dam,” Mr. Singh said on Wednesday.

The CEO explained the access dams are essential to the reaping phase since they are used by harvesters to get to the fields and to transport the plants to the factory.

“If those dams are not in good shape, it means the cost of production goes up,” he relayed.

Mr. Singh said GuySuCo’s accomplishment to date, deserves recognition “because when I first came at GuySuCo, based on my consultation with everyone, I have always said GuySuCo has a very strong and highly talented team.

I still believe GuySuCo’s greatest asset remains its manpower. This would not be possible without the technical talent and the commitment of the workers to the industry.”

Mr. Singh said before the actual harvesting of the cane begins, an agronomist goes into the field to test sample canes to ascertain the juice content before a decision is made on which field is ready to be harvested.

“You just don’t go and burn cane plants and harvest. There is an agronomist who goes and test field by field and sample bits of canes and then they decide whether the cane is at the maturity level based on the result of the polarimeter. So, there is a general harvesting plan,” Mr. Singh noted.

Meanwhile, GuySuCo’s Acting Field Operation and Research Director, Mr. Yudi Persaud, explained that the field burning exercise usually occurs before the cane is harvested to remove the leaves and tops of the sugarcane plant to leave only the stalk for the harvesting period. The fire also gets rid of any insects within the fields creating better conditions for those harvesting manually.

He said it is important for the Corporation to follow all the necessary processing requirements to have maximum outputs form the sugar plants.

“The process is when we harvest the canes tomorrow, we would either load them in the punt manually or with bell loaders and based on quantity we will then transport it to the factory through the navigation canals to the factory,” Mr. Persaud said.

According to research and evidence, the highest level of the sugar content is achieved when the sugar plant is harvested, transported to the factory and crushed within 48 hours.