Verbum Farm

More Tropical/Subtropical agriculture in Southeast Michigan - from Verbum Farm LLC 🌴

Today was sugar cane planting day. Although I've grown it successfully for about 8 years now, this year I bought some fresh stock from a Florida grower. Very exciting to a weirdo like me 😆

Unlike many annuals or perennials grown in temperate areas, many tropical staples are grown from cuttings like this, not from seed. In the case of sugar cane, as you can see, the typical planting method, whether by machine or hand, is to lay them down horizontally in a trench. It looks altogether funny to the Yankee eye, but this is very much like they do it everywhere from the Deep South, to the Caribbean, to Central and South America, to Asia and the Pacific.

The new shoots (it's a grass) will grow from those little "nodes" next to my hand in that photo. Incredibly, our climate is good enough to attain 4-6 foot (1.3-2 meter) mature plants by frost. That's quite small by sugar cane standards, but big enough to have a crop.

Look for sales of the mature canes, or "rattoons", by November, God willing!

You know, I may no longer be practicing as a civil engineer, but I'm still designing and building infrastructure!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣 The structures just carry livestock and not vehicles or pedestrians, that's all! 🐖

GO TECH! Michigan Technological University