Glossary of sugar terms

GPS Glossary - as advertised on page 28 in Bulletin issue 18 2008.

Approved seed: “approved seed” refers to disease-free planting material, from which stalks
are cut to provide billets (or setts) that are planted.
Ash: the inorganic matter in sugar. High levels cause sugar manufacturing difficulties. Also a
sugar mill byproduct from the burning of bagasse.
Bagasse: the plant fibre remaining after juice has been extracted from the cane
Billets: the chopped lengths (approx. 300 mm) of cane stalks produced by mechanical
harvesters.
Cane sugar: sucrose
CCS: commercial cane sugar – an estimate of the weight of raw sugar that could be obtained
from cane, expressed as a percentage of a tonne of cane
Chlorosis: lack of clorophyll in a plant resulting in a pale green or yellow colour
Crush: the crushing season, in Australia usually around 20 weeks between June and
November
Cultural controls: farm practices that farmers employ to improve yields or limit pest
damage. These are non-chemical controls that include practices such as early- or late-
planting and early- or late-harvesting of crops
Dunder: a byproduct of ethanol production and a rich source of potassium
GCTB: green cane trash blanketing. Until the 1980s, farmers commonly burned cane crops
prior to harvesting, but common practice is now to harvest the cane “green” with the
harvester machine dropping the cane tops and leaves (or “trash”) back onto the paddock
Greyback: greyback canegrub, the pupal stage of the greyback beetle. This native insect is
one of the most damaging pests of sugarcane
Mosaic: sugarcane mosaic is a disease caused by sugarcane mosaic virus, presently
controlled by the use of resistant varieties and disease-free plant material
Pol: polarisation, or the sucrose content of sugar. A sugar of 98 degrees pol would contain
98% sucrose
Plough-out: removing remnants of the old crop by mechanically ploughing it into the
paddock
Ploughout-replant: Also called 'replant'. The plant crop which is established soon after
harvest of the previous crop without the benefit of an extended fallow period
Q canes: commercial sugarcane varieties bred and released by BSES, identified by the Q
prefix and given a sequential number
Ratoon: ratoon cane is cane grown not from freshly planted billets, but from the stubble left
from the previous season after harvesting
Raw sugar: the sugar crystals separated in a centrifuge by the sugar mill
Ripeners: chemical herbicides used to limit the plant’s growth artificially to force the plant to
accumulate more sugar
Seed: see "approved seed"
Spindle: youngest immature leaves which have not yet unfurled
Split stool: see "stool splitting"
Stool splitting: the use of a coulter to slice a thin line through cane stools along the length of
the row. Fertiliser is dropped into the narrow slot via a hollow tine behind the coulter, and a
press wheeel closes the slot to prevent volatilisation loss of nitrogen
Sucrose: cane sugar
Standover: standover cane is cane that was for some reason unable to be harvested during
normal harvest season, and was left to ‘stand over’ into the next season. Reasons to stand
cane over include inability to drive harvest machinery into waterlogged paddocks.
Tillering: growth of stalks from the below-ground buds