Coco peat is the standard pro-tray medium for raising sugarcane seedlings from bud chips or single-bud setts, the nursery step behind the Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) and spaced transplanting. It holds water around the chip without waterlogging it and lets a 25 to 35 day old seedling slide out of the cell with its root ball intact. In trials, settlings from coco peat mixed 1:1 with vermicompost outyielded those from coco peat alone, which in turn beat plain soil.
Why raise sugarcane in trays at all?
Conventional planting buries a lot of cane. Published figures put the seed rate at roughly 6 to 8 tonnes of cane per hectare, and you'll see anything up to 10 tonnes quoted. Field germination of those setts is often poor, with 30 to 35% common in trials.
A bud chip removes only the bud, a sliver of the root band and a little rind. The rest of the stalk still goes to the mill or the jaggery pan. Once you raise those chips in a nursery, you plant a living seedling instead of hoping a sett comes up.
| Measure | Conventional setts | Bud chip or single-bud settlings |
|---|---|---|
| Seed cane per hectare | about 6 to 8 t (up to 10 t quoted) | about 0.75 to 2 t |
| Seed saving by weight | baseline | roughly 60 to 90%, with 80% the figure most often given |
| Bud germination | about 30 to 35% in the field | about 80 to 95% in trays |
| Seed multiplication ratio | about 1:10 | 1:60 to 1:100 |
| Planting units per acre (SSI) | around 60,000 buds in setts | about 5,000 seedlings |
The tray step makes that saving safe. Only rooted seedlings go out, and you grade out the weak ones first.
Preparing bud chips and single-bud setts
- Pick the right cane. Extension guidance asks for healthy cane roughly 6 to 10 months old, free of pests and disease. Chips from canes much younger than 2 months or older than 10 months are usually avoided. On older cane, skip the bottom metre.
- Cut the chips. A hand or powered bud chipper removes the bud with a small patch of the root band. A single-bud sett is the alternative, a short piece of stalk with one node, cut a few centimetres either side of the bud. Trials found no significant yield difference between the two, so choose whichever your labour and equipment suit.
- Treat them. Chips are usually soaked briefly in a fungicide, sometimes combined with an insecticide or a Trichoderma suspension, then shade-dried. Soaks run 10 to 30 minutes in the protocols we've read. Follow the products and rates registered in your country and your local sugarcane extension service's advice.
- Pre-sprout if you want to. Some SSI protocols store treated chips in a closed sack for 3 to 4 days and plant only the buds that have started to swell. That trims the tray count for buds that would never have come up.
If chips have to travel, pack them in perforated polybags inside a carton. A box of chips replaces a truck of seed cane.
Tray sizes and how to fill them
There is no single standard tray for sugarcane. Published nursery work used trays with anything from roughly 40 to 60 cells, larger than the 98- to 104-cell trays vegetable nurseries use. Here's what two documented setups looked like.
| Planting unit | Tray | Cell shape and size | Cells per tray |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-bud sett | 56 x 36 cm | rectangular, 70 x 50 mm, 75 mm deep | 42 |
| Scooped bud chip | 56 x 36 cm | round, 62.5 mm deep | 60 |
A sett lies flat and needs a long cell. A chip fits a smaller round one. Trials comparing two cavity sizes found the same germination, around 82%, in both, and recommended the smaller one to save medium and bench space.
The usual fill routine:
- Wet the coco peat first so it's evenly moist, not dripping.
- Fill each cell about halfway.
- Lay the chip flat or slightly tilted, bud facing up. Don't press it in hard.
- Top up with coco peat until the chip is fully covered, then water gently with a rose can.
- Stack the trays or cover them with a polythene sheet for about 5 to 7 days to hold warmth and humidity while the buds break.
Wetted coco peat holds several times its weight in water, so trays rarely need more before shoots appear. Check by feel.
Coco peat alone or blended?
Straight coco peat germinates chips well and releases the root ball cleanly. But it carries almost no nutrients, and a sugarcane seedling grows fast. Blends with an organic component give a stronger transplant, and that carries through to harvest.
In one field trial on seasonal cane, settlings raised in different media and transplanted at 28 days gave these results:
| Nursery medium | Cane yield (t/ha) | Millable canes per ha |
|---|---|---|
| Field soil only | about 82 | about 86,000 |
| Coco peat alone | about 90 | about 91,000 |
| Coco peat + vermicompost, 1:1 by weight | about 96 | about 96,000 |
| Coco peat + vermicompost + bacterial inoculant | about 113 to 135 | about 101,000 to 113,000 |
The best mixes added a nitrogen-fixing or phosphate-solubilising inoculant to the 1:1 base, at about 5 g per kg of medium.
Other nurseries use a soil, sand and vermicompost mix at 1:1:1, and that works too. Germination tests on 1:1 blends put coco pith with vermicompost at about 85% and coco pith with sawdust at about 88%, against 73 to 82% for the other combinations tried. The trade-off is weight. Soil makes trays heavy and can bring in weed seed and disease. Coco peat keeps thousands of trays light enough to carry.
If you blend, keep it simple: coco peat and well-rotted vermicompost or compost, wetted before filling. Our guide to coco coir, perlite and vermiculite mixes covers other additives.
Watering, shade and feeding
Water little and often. Use a rose can or fine mist. The cells are small and the medium drains, so check them every day in hot weather and water when the top of the plug feels dry. Waterlogged cells rot chips. Bone-dry cells stall them.
Give them shade early. A shade-net house or any warm, wind-sheltered spot is recommended for the first weeks. Seedlings raised under shade net were taller, had longer roots and a better vigour index than those raised in the open.
Feed lightly. Unblended coco peat runs short of nitrogen as leaves expand. A common practice is a 1% urea foliar spray at about day 15 and again around day 25. If you use washed, unbuffered coco peat, make sure any feed supplies calcium and magnesium too. Our pH and EC management guide explains why.
Seedling age at transplanting
Most guidance puts transplanting at 25 to 35 days, when the seedling has about three or four green leaves. Some programmes run longer, to 6 to 8 weeks.
| Age at transplanting | What trials found |
|---|---|
| About 3 to 4 weeks (3 to 4 leaves) | The usual SSI and spaced-transplanting window, with little transplant shock |
| 4 to 5 weeks | Yield about 89 t/ha in one trial, well above conventional setts |
| 6 weeks | Highest yield in the same trial, about 98 t/ha |
| 7 to 8 weeks | About 93 to 95 t/ha, still ahead of setts but starting to slip |
In that comparison, three- and two-bud setts planted directly gave about 77 and 68 t/ha. So every seedling age beat conventional planting. The best result came at about six weeks.
Seedlings are hardened before they go out, so cut back the shade and water in the final days and let them get used to open conditions. Stop watering a day before you lift them, which lets the coco peat plug slip out of the cell more easily.
Moving trays to the field
Pro-trays stack on racks, trolleys or trailers, and coco peat plugs are light. A few habits help:
- Water the field a day or two before transplanting, and irrigate again straight after.
- Keep trays shaded and out of wind during transport. Small root balls dry out fast.
- Plant the plug at the same depth it grew in the tray, and firm the soil around it.
Field spacing is wider than for setts. SSI uses 5 x 2 ft (about 150 x 60 cm). Spaced transplanting uses 90 x 90 cm or 120 x 60 cm. Wider spacing lets each seedling tiller fully, typically 15 to 20 tillers per plant against 6 to 8 under conventional planting.
Field results you can expect
Treat these as ranges, not promises. Variety, water and management move them.
| Result | Published range |
|---|---|
| Cane yield, nursery-raised settlings | about 82 to 135 t/ha across trials, depending on medium and seedling age |
| Gain over conventional setts | about 14 to 20% in most trials, more in some |
| Field survival of tray-raised seedlings | about 95% in one comparison, against about 83% for seedlings raised in small ground beds |
| Germination of chips in trays | about 80 to 95% |
Not every result is positive. Older spaced-transplanting trials gave slightly lower yields than three-bud setts. The method pays when the nursery is well run and the field is managed for wide-spaced cane.
A nursery specification for the medium
Agree these points with your supplier:
| Property | What to ask for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Washing | Washed with water to bring EC down | Young roots in small cells are sensitive to salt |
| Buffering | State whether it's buffered or not | Unbuffered coir holds some calcium and magnesium at first, so plan your feed |
| Texture | Fine to medium grade, low in long fibre | Fills small cells evenly and lets the plug release |
| Format | Compressed blocks for large nurseries | Easy to store and expand on site |
| Cleanliness | Free of soil, stones and weed seed | Keeps disease and weeds out of the nursery |
| Consistency | Same grade lot to lot | Uniform trays give uniform transplants |
Our particle size grades guide explains how grade affects water and air in a cell, and coco peat blocks are the usual format for nursery volumes. For the wider propagation picture, see coco peat for seed germination.
CVM Fiber and Industries makes coco peat in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India. Our coco peat is washed with water to reduce EC, with no calcium nitrate or other chemicals, and it isn't buffered. We supply 5 kg blocks, 650 g briquettes and custom blends. If you're setting up or expanding a sugarcane nursery, contact us to talk about grades and formats.
FAQ
Why use coco peat for sugarcane bud chips instead of soil?
Coco peat is light, clean and holds water evenly, so chips germinate reliably and the seedling slides out of the cell with its root ball intact. In one field trial, settlings raised in coco peat gave higher cane yield than those raised in field soil, and a coco peat and vermicompost blend did better still.
What is the best coco peat mix for sugarcane pro-trays?
Coco peat mixed 1:1 with vermicompost is the blend most often recommended. Adding a bacterial inoculant such as a nitrogen fixer or phosphate solubiliser to that mix gave the highest yields in trials. Straight coco peat works but needs a light nitrogen feed as the seedlings grow.
How many days do sugarcane seedlings stay in the tray?
Most guidance says 25 to 35 days, when the seedling has three or four green leaves. Some trials found the best yield from seedlings transplanted at about six weeks. Seedlings left eight weeks or more start to lose their advantage.
What germination percentage should I expect from bud chips in trays?
Well-prepared chips usually reach about 80 to 95% germination in pro-trays. Conventional setts planted straight into the field often manage only 30 to 35%. Chip size and cane age matter, and chips cut too small germinate poorly.
How much seed cane does the bud chip method save?
Conventional planting uses roughly 6 to 8 tonnes of cane per hectare. Bud chip and single-bud nurseries need about 0.75 to 2 tonnes. The saving is usually put at around 80% by weight, and the rest of the stalk can still be crushed.
Which pro-tray size suits sugarcane bud chips?
Trays of about 40 to 60 cells are typical, with deeper cells than vegetable trays. Single-bud setts need longer rectangular cells, while chips fit smaller round ones. Trials found germination was the same in two cavity sizes, so the smaller one saves medium and space.
Do sugarcane seedlings need shade in the nursery?
Yes, at least in the early weeks. Seedlings raised under shade net grew taller with longer roots and better vigour than those raised in the open. Cut back the shade and water in the final days to harden them before transplanting.