Sangara Output Described as
p. 45 · Read in the full issue
Papuan Sugar.
Sangara Output Described as “Phenomenal.”
From Our Own Correspondent.
Pt. Moresby, Nov. 30.
WHILE the Lieutenant-Governor (ac companied by Mr. H. W. Champion and Mr. H. L. Murray) was on tour in the north-east recently, he inspected the sugar areas under cultivation by San gara Sugar Estates, Ltd., about twenty miles inland from Buna.
His Excellency was impressed by the healthy and vigorous condition of the cane and the apparently excellent pros pects of successful sugar cultivation in this district—where the soil, rainfall and labour supply are most suitable.
Sangara Sugar Estates, Ltd., was reg istered in Papua late in 1931. It ac quired 20,000 acres of suitable land and planned big scale developments: but owing to the general depression, it de cided to engage merely in experimental cultivation for the present.
It is officially announced on behalf of Sangara that this season’s harvest on the experimental area near Buna records the phenomenal yield of 76 tons of cane to the acre.
The Commonwealth Department of Trade and Customs comments. “This is quite phenomenal—even for planted cane grown on heavy stump-grubbed land.”
In North Queensland the average yield is around 22 tons per acre occasionally rising to 50 or 60 tons, but in Queens land only a small proportion is plant cane, the balance being second, third or fourth year ratoon crops. The result of the Papuan experiment, therefore, must not be regarded as anvthing like what would be the normal production. At the same time, it proves that Papuan con ditions are extremely suitable for sugar growing.