"We were pretty dry, so actually, people were looking for a little bit of rain," said LSU AgCenter sugarcane specialist Kenneth Gravois.




While some cane in coastal areas remains under water that was pushed in by tidal surge, that water does not appear to be salty, and "we are hopeful that the problem is localized and not industry-wide," he said. And because this year's crop is a little shorter than usual, lodging and top breakage from storm winds were limited.

"It's early in the tropical season, and we have a long way to go, but we dodged a major bullet," Gravois said. "We do have some issues to deal with, but we think that with good weather, the crop will upright itself."


"We think that 1.8 million tons is still very attainable," Gravois said.

He expects mills to open for processing around Sept. 17 — an early start date that is necessary because this year's crop is large.


Good prices are drawing more people into the sugarcane business.

"The suspension agreements that are in place right now have really stabilized the market," Gravois said, referring to measures implemented to prevent Mexico from "dumping" sugar in the U.S. "Sugarcane is also a very resilient crop, so it can take these weather conditions. We don't see a lot of fluctuations in our yields compared to other crops."



Currently, an older variety called L 01-299 accounts for about half of Louisiana sugarcane acreage. "Anytime we get new varieties that allow us to diversify our variety mix" is cause for excitement, Gravois said.

"There's an advantage to having varieties with different characteristics and different strengths on your farm," explained AgCenter sugarcane breeder Michael Pontif.


It takes about 12 years to develop a new sugarcane variety.

"It's a long process," Pontif said, that begins with single plants being selected for desirable traits. Years later, prospective varieties are planted in 12 locations to test how they stand up to various conditions.

"Once they make it that far, that's really the telltale sign that they're going to be able to make it through and become a commercial variety," Pontif said.