Making sugarcane crosses for Louisiana at Canal Point, Florida

Every year, in early December sugarcane breeders in Louisiana go to Florida to make genetic crosses. The seed will mature in Florida and be returned to Louisiana to begin a 12-year selection process that ultimately culminates in the development of new, higher yielding, disease and insect resistant varieties. The breeding activity occurs at the USDA Sugarcane Field Station at Canal Point, Florida, on the southeast corner of Lake Okeechobee. Temperatures are moderated by this large lake, so this is a good location to have a sugarcane breeding facility within the continental U.S., where sugarcane naturally flowers outdoors. A blowup of the above picture captured from from Google Earth shows the very large and narrow crossing house where the crosses are made. Parents designated to be used as females are maintained outdoors; night temperatures below 60 F will kill the pollen they produce, and thus cause the outdoor plants to be largely male sterile. Parents designated to be used as males are maintained on a very long rail cart, which gets rolled out of the crossing house every morning (so we have room to make crosses indoors inside cubicles on both sides of the building), then rolled inside the crossing house every evening so that they are kept warm at night. The crossing activity in Florida is aimed at making commercial crosses for both the Florida and Louisiana sugarcane industries. Our people have been in Florida over the past two weeks; I will be going down this week. We do make crosses at Houma, Louisiana on a smaller scale, but most of the locally made crosses are designed to introgress highly desirable traits from wild canes into a commercial background. Examples of desirable traits from the wild canes include improved vigor, cold tolerance, stalk population, and stubbling ability.