Sugarcane is a perennial member of the Graminae family. The biomass production amounts to 80 to 140 tonnes per hectare. The growth of sugarcane is divided into four stages, seedling, tillering, stretching and maturity. During the tillering and stretching periods the crop grows quickly, the sugarcane biomass production increases and more nutrients are absorbed. In this work, it was found that the amount of potassium taken up by sugarcane was greater than the amounts of other nutrients that were absorbed. At each period of development, the potassium content of the sugarcane plant was higher than the content of any other nutrient element apart from nitrogen. The amounts of potassium absorbed varied from 109.1 to 315.28 kg K₂O per hectare. According to the statistical results of 82 field experiments, there was a very positive correlation between the yield of sugarcane and the amount of potassium absorbed. The correlation coefficient was r=0.979**. The function relating the sugarcane yield (y) with the amount of potassium absorbed (x) was y=31687.1+246.0x. With application rates of potassium between 150 and 450 kg/ha, the sugarcane yield increased by between 4.75% and 23.78%.