Question

Write the desirable characters a farmer looks for in his sugarcane crop.

Answer 1

A farmer looks for high yield, high sugar content, thick stem, higher abiotic stress tolerance, and disease resistance in his sugarcane crop. Sugarcane belongs to the genus Saccharum and is a crop of warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia and Melanesia.

Complete answer:
Sugarcane is a tall perennial true grass of Saccharum genus and mainly used for the production of sugar. It consists of stout, jointed, fibrous stalks. These stalks are rich in sugar sucrose which is gathered in the stalk internodes. The plant is about twenty feet tall.
All the species of sugarcane interbreed and complex hybrids are the major commercial cultivators. Sugarcane belongs to the Poaceae family, which is an economically important seed plant family. The Poaceae family includes maize, rice, sorghum and many forage crops.
Cultivation of sugarcane required a tropical or subtropical climate and minimum 60 cm annual moisture. Sugarcane is one of the efficient photosynthesizers of the plant kingdom and able to convert more than 1% solar energy into biomass.
In practice, Saccharum Barberi and Saccharum officinarum are being used to develop such combinations. Saccharum barberi was originally grown in north India, but had poor sugar content and yield. Tropical canes grown in South India, Saccharum officinarum had thicker stems and higher sugar content but did not grow well in Northern region of India and these two species are successfully crossed to get sugarcane varieties combining the beneficial standard of high yield, thick stems, high sugar and ability to grow in the sugarcane areas of North India.

Note: About 90% of total weight is juice which contains up to 17% sucrose and dextrose and fructose also. Sugar cane was the first industrial crop and now grown in more than hundred countries, most of them are underdeveloped countries.