ABSTRACT
Sugar, being a product of photosynthesis, occurs in many plants. The principle crop sources of sugar as a commodity are sugarcane, sugar beet, corn, maple, and sorghum. Sugar is an attractive commodity which has even provided a simple means of collecting taxes. Thousands of people throughout the world gain their livelihood from sugar. Sugarcane is four times as effective as any other tropical plant in terms of dry-matter production per hectare per year, and sugar beet is twice as productive as any temperate-zone plant. Sugars, which are made by plant cells in the presence of sunlight, are the main reason why foods of plant origin are nutritionally useful. Fructose was previously an expensive sugar derived from sucrose. Maple syrup is a noncultivated, nonfertilized woodland crop. Historically, sorghum syrup has been largely produced by open-kettle evaporative condensation of the juice crushed from the sorghum cane of varieties classified as “sweet” sorghum.
