Impact of sugarcane trash on fertilizer requirements for São Paulo, Brazil

The area under mechanized sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) harvesting is expanding in Brazil, increasing the return of trash to the soil. The main questions regarding this management are: (i) after adopting unburned mechanical harvesting, how long will it take to observe decreases in fertilizer requirements, (ii) what will be the magnitude of this decrease and, (iii) the impact in the short run of removing trash for energy purposes in the nutrient cycling? This study aimed to build an N prediction model for long term assessment of the contribution of sugarcane crop residues to sugarcane nutrition an...