From the Editor: The Pursuit of Sweetness
Luis Ayala for december
A couple of days ago, LSU’s AgCenter writer Olivia McClure reported that the Dean Lee Research and Extension Center near Alexandria, Louisiana, has started a project aimed at researching sugarcane’s cold tolerance. This marks the first time that sugarcane is planted at the Extension Center, long thought to be too far North for cane cultivation. The initiative is driven by farmers who are either planning to switch to sugarcane or who are already growing it but want to expand the cultivation areas.
AgCenter pest management specialist Al Orgeron, with assistance from AgCenter sugarcane specialist Kenneth Gravois (featured in the June 2019 issue of “Got Rum?”), are overseeing the project, which is funded by the nonprofit American Sugar Cane League.
I still remember a couple of years ago, December 2017 to be more precise, when I received this photo from a colleague, showing a snow-covered sugarcane field in Louisiana:
Snowed Cane Field in Louisiana
Whether it is changes in climate like the above, or the desire to extend crops beyond their traditional areas of agriculture, research like the one being conducted by the AgCenter is crucial to the survival of cultivars.
Will this research result in the identification or development of cane varieties that have freeze/cold tolerance? Will those varieties produce sugar yields that make them financially-feasible?
Acclimation is a process that involves time and -hopefully- we have started this research with some of it still on the clock.
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher