What is sugar recovery percentage and how can I improve it in my cane (ganna)?

The single thing that improved my recovery was not cutting the cane too early just to get the field empty. Cane harvested before full maturity has watery juice and low sugar. I now wait for the proper window the mill advises and the recovery linked payment was clearly better.

Crushing delay quietly eats your recovery. Earlier my cut cane lay in the field two or three days waiting for transport and dried out. Now I coordinate the cutting only when the gate pass and vehicle are ready, so it reaches the mill within a day or two. Fresh cane to the crusher means more sugar.

Stopping heavy water and nitrogen in the last weeks before harvest helped me. If you keep flooding and feeding the cane right till the end, it keeps growing soft instead of storing sugar. A little stress in the final stage lets the sugar build up. Get the exact timing for your variety from the mill cane staff.

Detrashing the lower dry leaves and avoiding lodging also held my recovery up. Cane that has fallen flat or is half buried in old trash does not ripen evenly and the mill found the recovery lower. Once I kept the field clean and the canes standing, the juice quality was steadier across the lot.

Keeping the crop free of borer held my recovery up, because the borer damaged internodes do not store sugar well and the mill found the juice poorer. Along with timely harvest and quick crushing, healthy clean cane gave the best recovery. Get the borer management schedule from your mill cane staff.