Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

Appearances can be deceiving. There's often a Twilight Zone in the world of plants. Peppers often have Euglenas for this; some peppers I grow are labelled ornamental & yet no hotter than a Jalapena. We use them in salsas every summer :).

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

a little update:

I learned that there somebody has some seed from the original sugarcane grown here. The seed is OLD. One of the local nurseries is going to try and germinate it. I am going to try to get some of it, if even one plant...I think that it would be nice, for historic reasons. I am still looking at other cultivars for my principal sugarcane

aaron

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

Would sure appreciate it if you could let me know how that turns out :). I'm a bit of a history buff, myself.

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

I grow 2 kinds of sugacane variety here. I posted pictures in my gallery ..The variegated kind and the purple color kind..

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

nice pics.

thanks

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

Very nice!

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

Beth,

You say that there, they grow the sugarcane right in on the floodplain. How would it work actually in water or slightly boggy ground. I could plant in the creek bottoms here. They are full of tamarisks and other such plants. Sometimes there is no surface water, sometimes there is, (often 4-6 inches of slow moving water). When there is no surface water, there is still much subsurface.

Does that sound like something that would work for sugarcane? Or is it subject to root rot or other such with so much water? If so, would it be okay, if on the dryer land near the flowing water, with close subsurface? or ???

thanks

aaron

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

The floodplain is only boggy for about a month each year, during the flood - however, cane will grow in marginal and swamped land with little difficulty, provided that you're starting with ratoons or seedlings rather than unsprouted seed. It's a water hog to begin with, and there is really very little you can do to kill it.

Re: who can enlighten me about sugar cane?
 

hey beth...good to see your posts

in my area of mexico, the cane producers are up a bit in altitude, but in a rain shadow...

looks like processing is an issue without a good grinder...maybe one of those 8hp units found up north to grind yard waste...

bottom line, it's sugar, if you use it...my grandfolk lived out on the plains in colorado where the lowly sugar beet was the plant of choice, and i've never heard anyone interested in growing that plant instead of buying a bag of sugar at the store,,,

but, if one considers the archetectural qualities of a 12 foot grass in the garden (think background), sugar cane is a great grass...a nice background to augment those 6' fences that cities limit the gardens to...

all ornamental grases require yearly work...and sometimes very sharp ground tools and maybe a big maul to cut the old plant pad...but what the heck, grasses are some way cool gardening...

on the other side beth...everything settled down down there?