Author Topic: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?  (Read 5654 times)

Future

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Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« on: May 09, 2015, 09:41:46 AM »
I recently saw a video (made by a rum producer from South America) and in the video they showed sugarcane with flowers. This was the first I have seen this.  Has anyone seen (in person) a sugar can plant flower before? I note per the link below they can produce seeds also. Crossing sugar cane plants would be a great project and I wonder if those in locales that support flowering (day length, temps) are doing this....

http://www.sugarcanecrops.com/growth_morphology/the_inflorescence/

TnTrobbie

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2015, 11:15:48 AM »
I've seen it in central Trinidad in abandoned canefield lands. Usually the sugar canes are very old before they even begin to flower. The canes are not healthy looking neither but thin and dry.
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Ansarac

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2015, 11:16:42 PM »
It seems that sufficient stress in some plants causes them to bloom.

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2015, 05:23:11 PM »
If you don't harvest in frost free places they bloom in the winter but i never tried to grow.

Future

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2015, 06:48:29 PM »
If you don't harvest in frost free places they bloom in the winter but i never tried to grow.

I've had plants for years and never seen a bloom.

jcaldeira

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2015, 06:51:31 PM »
Almost all sugar cane in Fiji flowers when mature.   I've never heard of starting cane from seeds, though, even accidentally.



There are several varieties of cane in Fiji and I'm unaware of any cross-breeding at all.

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2015, 11:24:01 PM »
I've had them bloom after one year from cuttings.

Ansarac

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2015, 04:23:32 PM »
The seeds can be found online, but they seem to be thread-like. I am very careful but have never gotten any to germinate, before.

From some places, they seem to be under import restriction, so never arrive.

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2015, 05:12:52 PM »
You could probably take two varieties of sugarcane and put a notch in them so you can connect the 2 and strap them together and bury them. Maybe they will eventually get a bit of both DNA. Who knows.

merce3

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2015, 05:52:47 PM »
bumping this to the top to show a picture of my cane flowering. it seems to have happened overnight.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 05:54:40 PM by merce3 »

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2015, 06:02:19 PM »
Is that the cane you got from me? It's time to harvest now for highest sugar content.

merce3

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #11 on: December 14, 2015, 06:08:11 PM »
sure is! i have some of the black/purple in another spot, but it's nowhere near as tall because it's in partial shade.

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #12 on: December 14, 2015, 06:15:05 PM »
That kind grows way faster than the purple/black. It's looking great, have you ate any of it yet?

merce3

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2015, 08:58:27 PM »
That kind grows way faster than the purple/black. It's looking great, have you ate any of it yet?

oh yeah, quite a bit. it's very sweet. it's just a pain in the butt to clean and peel. i'll get to it this week though.

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2015, 09:26:04 PM »
I wish the Juicers weren't so pricey. It is a lot of work to peel them, but fun to chew.

greenman62

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #15 on: December 15, 2015, 06:29:07 AM »
my uncle used to grow cane for profit
its big business in Louisiana.
In the countryside there are fields of the stuff you can see for miles on end.
ive never seen it flower.

I did buy some sorghum seeds a while back, and have a couple of plants now
as an oddity, and to produce biomass.
They are closely related to sugarcane,, and there are a couple of varieties that have sweet edible canes.

i actually just ordered seeds last week for more varieties.

from Native seed
nativeseeds.org

waiting on seed for  these 2...
one is called sugarcane, but, im not sure if it really is,
or, what the difference really is ??

APACHE RED
The beautiful red seedheads attract birds,
 and the stalk is chewed like candy when the red seeds are ripe.

http://shop.nativeseeds.org/products/s001

http://shop.nativeseeds.org/products/s002

http://shop.nativeseeds.org/collections/sorghum



« Last Edit: December 15, 2015, 06:31:05 AM by greenman62 »

Snow

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #16 on: December 16, 2015, 01:18:51 AM »
What happens to the sugarcane sugar content if it's not harvested in winter? Will it stay the same or go down after winter? I planted some cane last year and one of the stalk have stripes on it, non of my sugarcane have ever bloomed so that mean it can't be cross polinated with something else plus I only had one variety in my garden at the time. 

Don

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #17 on: December 16, 2015, 04:31:24 AM »
Most cane around our area here flowers, out near woongoolba to Jacobs well you drive past hectares of the stuff in flower as it has fully matured and normally signals the start of the cane season. Don't know what varieties they are.

Soren

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #18 on: December 16, 2015, 06:22:58 AM »
I recently saw a video (made by a rum producer from South America) and in the video they showed sugarcane with flowers. This was the first I have seen this.  Has anyone seen (in person) a sugar can plant flower before? I note per the link below they can produce seeds also. Crossing sugar cane plants would be a great project and I wonder if those in locales that support flowering (day length, temps) are doing this....

http://www.sugarcanecrops.com/growth_morphology/the_inflorescence/

Flowering happens all the time here in Uganda
Søren
Kampala, Uganda

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #19 on: December 16, 2015, 06:34:49 AM »
What happens to the sugarcane sugar content if it's not harvested in winter? Will it stay the same or go down after winter? I planted some cane last year and one of the stalk have stripes on it, non of my sugarcane have ever bloomed so that mean it can't be cross polinated with something else plus I only had one variety in my garden at the time.
If it doesn't freeze it will keep growing and flower

Future

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #20 on: December 16, 2015, 11:32:47 AM »
I wonder is it variety, age, day length or some combo that causes flowering.  In all my years I have never seen it on my plants.

merce3

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #21 on: December 16, 2015, 11:40:30 AM »
i read online somewhere that warm winters trigger flowering and that the sugar content drops down after flowering... i harvested all of my cane yesterday. i still need to clean it though. the fire i set to burn off all of the leaves definitely got the neighborhood's attention. :)

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #22 on: December 16, 2015, 03:47:06 PM »
this is why ive never seen it flower
mostly its grown in central Louisiana
or, at least thats the only place ive seen lots of it.
guess its too cold to flower there regularly anyway.
================


 When a sugarcane plant has reached a relatively mature stage of development, its growing point may, under certain photoperiod and soil moisture conditions, change from the vegetative to reproductive stage.
 
This means the growing point ceases forming leaf primordia and starts the production of an inflorescence. It is a short day plant. Its photoperiodic conditions can thus be attained largely in the tropics.
 
The inflorescence, or tassel, of sugarcane is an open-branched panicle .It is also known as arrow. Therefore flowering is also known as "arrowing". Each tassel consists of several thousand tiny flowers, each capable of producing one seed. The seeds are extremely small and weigh approximately 250 per gram or 113,500 per pound.
 
For commercial sugarcane production,inflorescence             
development is of little economic importance. Flowering is important for crossing and producing hybrid varieties.
 
Generally, a day length close to 12.5 hours and night temperatures between 20° to 25°c will induce floral initiation. Optimum growth conditions in the vegetative phase (fertile soil, abundant supply of nitrogen and moisture) restrict inflorescence while stress conditions induce formation of blossoms.

http://www.sugarcanecrops.com/growth_morphology/the_inflorescence/

merce3

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Re: Crossing sugar cane & making seed?
« Reply #23 on: December 16, 2015, 04:00:41 PM »
this is why ive never seen it flower
mostly its grown in central Louisiana
or, at least thats the only place ive seen lots of it.
guess its too cold to flower there regularly anyway.
================


 When a sugarcane plant has reached a relatively mature stage of development, its growing point may, under certain photoperiod and soil moisture conditions, change from the vegetative to reproductive stage.
 
This means the growing point ceases forming leaf primordia and starts the production of an inflorescence. It is a short day plant. Its photoperiodic conditions can thus be attained largely in the tropics.
 
The inflorescence, or tassel, of sugarcane is an open-branched panicle .It is also known as arrow. Therefore flowering is also known as "arrowing". Each tassel consists of several thousand tiny flowers, each capable of producing one seed. The seeds are extremely small and weigh approximately 250 per gram or 113,500 per pound.
 
For commercial sugarcane production,inflorescence             
development is of little economic importance. Flowering is important for crossing and producing hybrid varieties.
 
Generally, a day length close to 12.5 hours and night temperatures between 20° to 25°c will induce floral initiation. Optimum growth conditions in the vegetative phase (fertile soil, abundant supply of nitrogen and moisture) restrict inflorescence while stress conditions induce formation of blossoms.

http://www.sugarcanecrops.com/growth_morphology/the_inflorescence/


thanks.. yeah, we're right in the sweet spot in terms of temperature