Herbicides represent 12% of sugarcane costs in Brazil in 2021/2022

With the effects of inflation on the prices of inputs that happened in recent months, herbicides currently represent 12% of the total cost of sugarcane in Brazil in the 2021/2022 season.

This information was announced by ″Pecege – Consultancy and Projects on Productivity Management″ during the event, Sinergia Taranis 2022, held in the city of Ribeirão Preto in the state of São Paulo.

João Rosa, consultant at Pecege

According to the Pecege consultant João Rosa, Brazilian producers must be very attentive so at the end of the harvest, they can assess their profits.

″The price of herbicides has gone up a lot. The average expenditure on these products in sugarcane stumps, in the 2021/2022 harvest, represented 12% of the production cost, that is, BRL 363.35 per hectare,″ Rosa said.

He added that for the creation of cane fields, the average expenditure was R$936 per hectare.

″However, there is significant variations in investments between plants in the same regions,″ he said.

An example seen in surveys by Pecege showed that a company invested BRL521.00/ha on planting and another invested BRL 421.00/ha, representing 23.75% less or a BRL100.00 difference per hectare.

″Among several factors, the management of herbicide recommendations can affect this variation. What makes the process expensive is the use of products without purpose, because of a lack of knowledge of a current problem, which is why monitoring is essential to preventing a drop in productivity,″ Rosa added.

The Sinergia Taranis 2022 meeting was promoted by the company, Taranis do Brasil, and focused on the sugar-energy sector, under the theme, ″Matocompetition: Those who do not measure, do not manage.″

Major names in the segment were present, to take advantage of the opportunity to discuss useful information about the management of weed competition affecting mills in Brazil, and how technology can help in this process.

Managers from more than 20 plants participated, which together represent a cultivated area of over 3.6 million hectares, almost 40% of the country's sugar-energy sector.

Pedro Christofoletti, consultant and independent researcher at PJC Consultoria Agronómica

When poorly managed, weeds can cause economic losses worth millions and irreversible damage to productivity, said Professor Pedro Christofoletti, consultant and independent researcher at PJC Consultoria Agronómica, who specializes in the areas of biology and weed management.

″There are many variations, but in the tests we conducted, we saw the maximum loss of productivity that reached 87.5%, compromising almost the entire production. However, we observed that average losses were still high and stayed between 45% and 50% of productivity if you do not manage the bush correctly,″ said Christofoletti, who is a former president of the Brazilian Society of Science of Weed Plants.

Management is the major bottleneck of the issue, with some producers still believing that weed competition control can only be done by investing more on herbicides, often by using ″standard recipes″ based on assumptions and data with little precision.

However, experts stressed that increasing investment in pesticides may not always be the solution.

″Monitoring is fundamental, mainly to identify the level of infestation and which species are present in affected areas, so we can direct the correct management, optimize recommendations and invest more efficiently, according to the real situation in the sugarcane field,″ Christofoletti stressed.

High-precision monitoring carried out using drones and planes, which capture very detailed images of crops and generate real and accurate information, is the most efficient tool that enables herbicide recommendations to become much more assertive.

Michel Fernandes, consultant at MS Fernandes Consultoria Agrícola

″Professionals need to understand that monitoring technologies are allies, as they can point out where people are making mistakes and how they can improve the process,″ said Michel Fernandes, consultant at MS Fernandes Consultoria Agrícola.

The promoter of the event, Taranis, is a high-precision monitoring platform that utilizes artificial intelligence and is focused on helping producers and agricultural consultants make more assertive decisions, simplify management and improve their results, through a complete digital monitoring service at the foliar level using drones and planes.

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)