You may be aware more cold hardy sugar cane is being grown. Currently zone 8 sugarcane is possible. It’s likely that they will continue to cross these grasses and sugarcane.
“ Researchers now report that two miscanes – the offspring of crosses between sugarcane and a hardy, cold-tolerant grass, Miscanthus – perform as well as the grass species Miscanthus x giganteus at 10 degrees Celsius (50 F), staying green and converting carbon dioxide to plant matter at a steady rate. Although the rate of photosynthesis drops in the miscanes at 10 C, it doesn’t stall out altogether, as it does in sugarcane.”
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Good to know, but I will stick with sugar beets if I decide to grow sugar.
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i want one! Here in vegas, extreme heat and borderline drought are not a problem for Saccharum species. It is the cold which destroys all dormant nodes-- so even though cuttings continue to grow roots, without nodes, the cuttings are doomed.
below are our saccharum’s which hopefully will survive our freeze-drying winters. Will transplant them deep to hopefully help insulate
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Very intersting article there Clark. I wonder if We can grow the Miscanes real deep in Z5 or Z6 and see if it will resprout from the ground in the Spring? May give Erik a call.
Tony
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@tonyOmahaz5
i’ve been trying to come up with a to grow sugarcane. We need a way to gain 2 zones of cold hardiness. It would make a bunch of sugar and a bunch of compost.
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nice! was that outdoors all along?
Indoor at the west facing window. I will move it outside in April.
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will post a pic of our potted(and unprotected/uninsulated)sugarcane tomorrow, after a season low of 24F(several hours)three weeks ago. Gave it tough love, and it seems to be hanging on despite chlorosis of leaf blades.
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below is the “after”, compare it with the “before” photo i posted earlier in this thread, which was prior to sub-freezing temps. Some of the younger leaves have retained some green, so anticipating that some dormant buds within leaf sheaths or below soil-level are still alive. The red sugarcane i planted on the clay pot at right seemed to have frozen and withered during the cold spell. I seriously doubt the below-soil buds are viable
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Are you going to revive them indoor?
unfortunately not. I am admittedly a lazy orchardist, practically all of what i grow are given ‘tough love’.
providing them water and strategic(but permanent) locations in the yard are all i ever do for anything i plant. If they don’t perform well or die, then so be it, lol
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Sipping my coffee and watching my Sugarcane grow. The Mrs. miniature Turtle also looking at it.
Tony
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That’s a real sugar cane 
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