International Journal of Environment and Climate Change

Sugarcane is considered as one of the world’s major C₄ plants, which is mainly grown in the tropical and sub-tropical regions and considered as long-duration crop, that requires approximately 10 to 15 and even 18 months to mature. India ranks second in terms of area, production, and productivity. Kerala has only 1000 ha of sugarcane cultivation with 10606 T of production and 10.66 Tonnes per hectare, which shows only a negligible contribution towards the Indian economy. The present study has aimed to characterize Kerala's main sugarcane-growing soils through a survey in which surface soil samples were taken from AEU 9, 4, 17, and 22. in which, a higher average pH of about 8.25 was observed in Chittoor (AEU 22) compared to Marayoor (7.2), Thiruvalla (5.2), and Pandalam (5.5), due to the alkaline nature of black montmorillonite soil having higher organic matter and other nutrients such as N, P, K, Ca, Mg, and Si. Due to their near-neutral pH, Marayoor soils facilitate enhanced nutrient availability and absorption by plants compared to other soil types. Because of phosphorous (P) fixation in AEU 4 and 9 due to the formation of Fe-Al phosphates and calcium phosphate formation in the alkaline soils of AEU 22, the availability of phosphorous has decreased. The lateritic soils in southern Kerala exhibit high acidity and Fe-Al toxicity, resulting in reduced nutrient content, particularly silicon. This element is crucial for sugarcane, being a Si-accumulator crop that absorbs between 300-700 Kg ha^-1 of available Si (monosilicic acid) from the soil. Silicon is considered as the most advantageous element for sugarcane growth that helps to resist various biotic and abiotic factors and specially helps to alleviate Fe-Al toxicity thereby contributes to better yield and quality of cane. Consequently, it is essential to recommend silicon nutrition strategies for sugarcane enhance both the productivity and quality of the crop.