Planting for Mechanical Harvesting

To minimize crop loss with mechanical harvesting, planting should be done with the harvester in mind.

• Row spacing should conform to wheel width of harvester. This will minimize damage to cane and row, while keeping harvester over center of row. Proper row width will also help reduce the amount of cane that is crushed or lost by off center cutting.

• Row length is important to reduce turnarounds.

• Headlands (field roads) should be wide enough to allow harvester to enter and exit without rolling over cane rows. Roads should be 6 m (19 ft.) in width.