Brazil is the proverbial gorilla in the room when it comes to sugarcane production. According to UNICA, during the 2009/2010 campaign that concluded on March 31, Brazilian mills had processed 542 million metric tons (or tonnes) of cane. Of the total cane processed, 42.6% was used for sugar and 57.4% for ethanol. Total sugar production was 28.6 million tonnes, while ethanol production was 23.7 billion liters. To put some of this into perspective, Brazil hauled more cane to their mills than the U.S. hauled corn (331 million tonnes), soybeans (73 million tonnes) and wheat (56 million tonnes), put together, based on crop statistics from FAOSTAT. And these are our top three agronomic crops. Granted, the collective value of the unprocessed corn, soybeans, and wheat vastly exceeds that of raw cane, but still, the sheer weight and volume of cane being transported for processing in Brazil is truly impressive. The total cane production in the U.S. last year, combining FL, HI, LA, and TX, was 27.8 million tonnes, or approximately 1/20th the size of the Brazilian crop. The U.S. is ranked 9th, after Brazil, India, China, Thailand, Mexico, Pakistan, Australia, and Colombia. In terms of ethanol produced from sugarcane, Brazil is really the only significant player out there right now.
Brazil has decided to wage an education campaign, in part, to bring into question the basis for the stiff tariffs the U.S. has imposed on ethanol exported from Brazil. If the U.S. is honestly trying to go green, and if the U.S. corn industry can't even begin to meet the potential ethanol demand, what is the point of the stiff tariffs? Brazil doesn't understand why the corn industry is pushing their congressional representatives to be so protective, when it isn't really necessary, and runs counter to our broader objective, as a country, to go green.
Each year, at the USDA Sugarcane Research Unit in Houma, we grow sugarcane seedlings from true seed resulting from crosses made during the winter. True seed of sugarcane has a shape similar to that of sesame seed but is much smaller, about the length of the commas in this sentence, which helps explain why sugarcane is not sexually propagated on farms and plantations. After about a month of careful nurturing, tiny seedlings can be transplanted to 72-cell trays, which you see in the photo above, taken yesterday. We transplant around 90,000 to 100,000 seedlings each year. This year, beginning on Apr 22, we will start transplanting these seedlings to the field. The field transplanting operation will take about a week to complete. Seedlings will be planted 16" apart on 6' wide rows. They will be cut back at the end of the year, then will begin to re-grow next spring. Those that cannot survive a Louisiana winter will cull themselves out. In the fall of 2011, the top 10% of surviving seedlings will be selected and be asexually propagated into the 2nd stage of selection. They will undergo additional stages of visual selection, increase, and multi-location yield testing. The entire breeding and selection process, from the time a cross is made, until a new variety is released to the industry, takes roughly twelve years. I will be long since retired before any commercial variety might possibly be selected from among the approximately 40,000 seedlings that can be viewed in the photo above. We have three greenhouses for seedling propagation, of which two are completely filled and one is partially filled with transplant seedlings this year.
While some of the country is still having winter weather, snow and all, it is pleasant enough down here in southern Louisiana to risk getting an early start on a spring garden. I took Friday off last week to get the garden in, knowing that Judy and I would be at the temple in Baton Rouge on Saturday. This year, the main changes I made were to 1) plant a few eggplants that were given to me, 2) do my own indoor planting of tomatoes rather than buying transplants, 3) try bush beans instead of edible soybeans with the thought of planting soybeans in early summer. The rows are labeled if you click on the picture. The reason the potatoes are already up is that I planted them in mid-February. The cucurbits this year will include watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and zucchini squash. They spill over from the last row into the grassy area. We also planted a row of peas on the far side of the fence on the right side and will let them climb up the fence. All of you that live further north can appreciate that an early garden is one of the perks of living in the deep south.
I was intrigued by a photo of a black penguin that came to my attention recently. We associate animals with their colors, and when the colors deviate from the norm, it really gets our attention. This one certainly got mine.
Casualties of the harsh winter here included our grapefruit and key lime citrus trees, and our guava tree. However, we had an above average production from our winter garden, and produced the best looking carrots that we have ever produced here this past winter. At our Station, we planted sugarbeets for the second year in the winter (November planting), and in spite of the temperature dipping into the low 20's for several consecutive days, the beets look just fine as seen in the photo above that I took this morning.
However, there is concern in the sugar industry as to how well the cane is going to come up in the spring. It is not unusual for the above-ground growth of fall planted cane to be killed by the occasional freeze in the winter, so that the photo I took today near our farm is not alarming in and of itself. The above-ground dead growth is usually cut back or burned off to let the spring growth come through. For the most part, the fall-planted crop should be OK. Of greater concern than the plant crop is how well the stubble crops of the more freeze sensitive varieties survived the harshest winter we have had in several years. Each successive stubble crop is closer to the surface of the ground and thus will not be as well protected as the previous crop. We will know fairly soon how well our sugarcane crop made it through the winter, inasmuch as spring is right around the corner.
