A Question for Cane Farmers on Cold Tolerance

Temperatures below 22 degrees will kill all above-ground parts of the sugar cane. Once this happens it becomes very susceptible to bacteria. The northern line is basically Rapides and Avoyelles Parish.

The sugarcane mills are the bottleneck. As stated, farmers each have a quota so more-or-less each farm finishes it's harvest about the same time.

The earlier you cut the cane, the less sweet it is. When they start in September, the sugarcane is still actively growing so the sucrose in the plant is low. As temperatures fall and days get shorter, the cane stops growing as fast and stores more sugar to make it through the winter. Sugar yields increase as winter approaches. A light freeze can really help the sugar yields as the cane stops growing completely and everything goes to sugar storage. But a hard freeze will kill the plant (sugar cane is a tropical plant) and while it will get real sweet for a time, after 1-3 weeks, the stalks actually spoil, and the crop is lost. Hard freezes before December are rare in South Louisiana. I guess that changes around Avoyelles Parish. I dunno.

Farmers will actually spray some fields with dilute Roundup (called pollada) just prior to harvest to get the sugar yield up. No surfactant though. It has the same affect as a light freeze.

The Sugar Industry would not exist in the US if not for government subsidies. American farmers could not stay in business if they had to trade their product on the world market.