ABSTRACT
Cultivated sugarcane hybrids are robust, vegetatively propagated perennial grasses, generally limited to latitudes within 30 degrees of the equator or to ocean-warmed coastal areas lying outside this belt. Sugarcane is the common name given to the sucrose-storing members of the genus Saccharum. Sugarcane is a tall, robust, clump-forming grass with culms, usually called stalks or stems, devoid of leaves below. A more detailed understanding of the processes regulating partitioning of photoassimilates should lead to strategies for genetically modifying them for greater productivity in this sucrose storing crop. The highest fresh weight crop yields are generally ascribed to tuber crops. The rates of translocation described were measured on well-tended, rapidly growing plants. In the absence of flowering, sugarcane growth is indeterminate so that the apical meristems of the shoot and root remain permanent growth sinks. Initially, all developing plant organs are sinks dependent upon imported photosynthate to sustain their respiration and growth.
