Sugarcane
Saccharum officinarum L.
Grass family
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is a perennial grass of the family Poaceae whose jointed stalks grow 2–7 m tall and store sucrose in the internodes, the main raw material of the sugar industry and of bioethanol. According to Kew POWO it is native to New Guinea and was domesticated by Papuans from the wild ancestor Saccharum robustum about 6,000 years ago, then spread across the tropics by Austronesian voyagers. It is the world's largest crop by production quantity (about 1.9 billion tonnes in 2020), with Brazil accounting for roughly 40%. Besides sucrose, cane juice is rich in polyphenols (caffeic, chlorogenic, tricin, apigenin, luteolin) and cane wax contains policosanols (octacosanol) and D-003. In Vietnam it is grown in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Phu Yen, Tay Ninh and Hau Giang, among others, for sugar and fresh juice.
