[Syrupmakers] blue-ribbon sugar cane?

[Bill Outlaw]

Thanks.

I was given a small stalk of blue-ribbon cane in Aiken, South 
Carolina, a couple of weeks ago.  It had no stripes.  I was a little 
surprised and had guessed (my error) that blue-ribbon was a synonym 
for "heirloom" ribbon, like you, Don Dean and others have.  I'll try 
to multiply the cane and see what it looks like under my 
conditions.  Synonyms and common names are monsters.  I hope other 
folks will chime in on this conversation to try to get a definition 
of blue ribbon.

A couple of days later, I picked up a few stalks of a heirloom cane 
in Lakeland, Florida.  It had been grown continuously by one family 
in Georgia for several generations.  (James Robinson (~70) gave it to 
me and he knows that it was the variety grown by his grandfather and 
thinks it was grown by his great grandfather.  See Slide 45 of
http://www.southernmatters.com/sugarcane/operations-snapshots_31-45.htm 
)  The stalks I got were small (it had been mowed in May and not 
tended to.) but the color is like Georgia Red (whatever that is???).

On your other point, universities have essentially given up on pure 
taxonomy.  With new emerging areas of science, hard choices have to 
be made to accommodate modern expertise.  Of course, it is a matter 
of priorities (about 20 taxonomists could be hired for the price of 
one football coach, but it boils down to 1/3 of a university 
president's job being to provide football for alumni.).  Fortunately, 
many amateurs (not novices) have picked up the slack (e.g., Bill 
Petty, a retired state worker, is a local expert on fungal 
identification and is called upon because Florida State doesn't have 
an expert).  Perhaps this is a niche with sugar cane that you want to 
fill?  If I ever find the time, I will post diagnostic features.

Best wishes to all.

Bill
(sc, Tally)

At 04:01 AM 11/26/2007, you wrote:
>Bill,
>    My definition of 'Blue Ribbon' cane would be a striped cane that 
> is mostly "blue"(red or purple) with yellow stripes in it. The 
> stripes can sometimes be greenish or whitish, but basically yellow. 
> There are many other striped canes of course with different colors. 
> But the Old-Fashioned(or heirloom) variety grown around here for 
> many years is basically as I described. It is a chewing and syrup 
> variety which at my location blows over more easily than most canes 
> do. In other areas, some people call other cane varieties Blue 
> Ribbon--which have no stripes. (I won't argue about it, but most of 
> the old literature that I have read indicates the presence of 
> stripes. 1 author that I read described a Ribbon cane in MS in the 
> 1800's that was a syrup--not chewing-- variety with no stripes)
>    I have another striped variety which is basically red with 
> fainter yellow stripes. It grows taller and doesn't blow over 
> easily at all. I believe that it would probably be best referred to 
> as 'Louisiana Striped'-- because it grows exactly like Louisiana 
> Red(or Georgia Red)-- but has considerable faint stripes. It is 
> also a chewing and syrup variety. It is very difficult to identify 
> these varieties from the literature that I have seen because they 
> don't give detailed enough detailed description about them in the 
> old literature. (I guess I use a "gut feeling" that I get from 
> reading what literature there is about them and from growing them 
> myself. I find few, if any, cane variety experts around. Most of 
> them are deceased.) If anyone has a detailed description of either 
> of these 2 varieties, I would ask them to please share it with all of us.
>    I'm anxious to see how many 'Blue Ribbon' canes are out there!
>                         Richard Harrison
>
>Bill Outlaw <bill at southernmatters.com> wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>Would someone(s) please provide a description of this cultivar for me?
>
>Thanks very much.
>
>Bill
>(sc, Tally)
>
>
>
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