Agricultural Focus
Glossary of Terms
Cultivar Name: The first two letters in the cultivar name represent the source of the cultivar. The next two numbers represent the year the first clonal crop of a given cross was planted. The numbers after the hyphen represent the accession number of that cultivar in the year it was named.
Soil Preference: Describes soils where the best performance of this cultivar can be expected. Under Florida conditions, this refers to either sand, organic (muck), both, or transitional soils. Transitional soils are organic soils that contain a large percentage of sand, or sand soils that contain a percentage of organic matter.
Sugar Content: This is an estimate based on comparisons with other commercial cultivars made at the UF/IFAS Everglades Research and Education Center. Because a range of values makes up a rating category, cultivars with the same rating are not necessarily equal. Ratings change as the harvest season progresses and are one of the determining factors of preferred harvest season. Rated as low, medium,or high.
Tonnage: Based on harvesting experiences over several years. This is a relative term and is influenced by soil type, location, harvest season, and ratoon being harvested. Rated as low, medium, or high.
Leaf Width: Measuring the widest part of the leaf at the fourth node from the top. Expressed as wide, medium, or narrow.
Sheath Pubescence: Using young sheaths at the top of the plant, rated as none, sparse, or dense.
Leaf Retention: Dead leaves may be tightly retained giving a trashy appearance, may be held on but easily shaken off, or may be self-stripping. Rated as attached, loosely attached, or self-stripping.
Canopy Characteristics: Canopy characteristics vary from compact to open, which influence sunlight penetration and sucker growth. Canopy growth habit can be classified as erect, erect with drooping tips, high arch, medium arch, or wide arch.
Canopy Closure: Speed of canopy closure influences weed and sucker growth. Rated as slow, intermediate, or fast.
Tillering: The number of shoots from a stool strongly influences potential yield. Number of tillers rated as low, medium, or heavy.
Stalk Size: Diameter relates to cane weight and susceptibility to lodging or bending. Rated as small, medium, or large.
Exposed Stalk Color: Rated as yellow, green, wine, red, purple, brown, or a described color.
Stubbling Ability: This is the ability of a cultivar to regrow after harvest. It may be strongly influenced by the height of the cutter blade above the soil line. Rated as poor, fair, or good.
Harvest Season: In the US A, harvest begins in late October and concludes in late March to early April. Rated as early (10/15 –12/1), mid (12/1–1/25), or late (1/25 –3/15).
Harvestability: Some cultivars grow very erect while others are prone to fall over (lodge). The erectness and degree of lodging influences the ability of mechanical harvesters to cleanly harvest a field in a timely manner. Rated as easy, moderate, or difficult.
Cold Tolerance: This has to do with the length of time a variety is able to maintain economic quality after a freeze. Rated as poor, medium, or good.
Frost Tolerance: This has to do with the ability of young cane to withstand or regrow after exposure to one or more frosts. Rated as poor, medium, or good.
Mechanically Cut Seed: Ease with which a cultivar can be harvested with a whole stalk harvester. Rated as poor, medium, or good.
Disease Concerns: After release, cultivars are considered to have adequate disease resistance to all of the important diseases recognized by the industry at that time. Therefore, disease concerns listed are the result of new strains of common diseases, or new diseases that have become important. There are numerous varieties of sugarcane available for cultivation. Most people are familiar with the soft- fiber varieties that are usually sold at super markets, intended for human consumption, mainly through direct chewing, although some people also press their own juice with these canes.
These varieties, however, are not the ones planted for or by mills who intend to use the canes for sugar production. They chose, instead, other varieties whose fiber content may not make them appetizing to humans, but that can be processed nicely and efficiently by heavy machinery, to squeeze their sweet juice. In many cases, varieties are also selected based on their pest resistance or the number of days it takes them to mature, so they are ready in stages, allowing for the harvest to progress from one field to the next, always finding ripe cane that is perfect for harvesting.
The purpose of this section, is to showcase specific varietals, allowing craft distillers to be better educated about their options, while at the same time allowing consumers to have a brief peek into the world of sugarcane agriculture.
