Planting Sugar Cane
The initial step towards producing high quality sugar is planting high quality sugar cane. 
Regarded by many as a bush, sugar cane is actually a very tall grass. Planting season varies from country to country, and even within some countries by region.
Most modern sugar cane plants are hybrid strains, which means that when they seed, the seeds produce plants with different characteristics from the parent plants. Sugar cane seeds are also fairly delicate, requiring specific day – light lengths in order to be viable for future growth. Sugar cane may seed during its growing period, but the seeds will normally not germinate in the field.
For obvious reasons, these factors mean that seeds are not a desirable choice when sugar growers are trying to plant a homogeneous sugar cane crop, so sugar cane is not planted from seed, but from setts. Setts are sliced lengths of sugar cane known as the mother plant. Around ten to fifteen centimeters long, each slice of the sugar cane contains between one and three buds. When planted, these buds sprout daughter plants which are of the same type as the mother plant. In one sense, this is cloning. Planting sugar cane this way ensures that a homogeneous crop with similar strengths, weaknesses, and sucrose levels can be grown, ensuring a consistent yield across the crop.
Most sugar cane is still planted by hand, in furrows anywhere from 75 centimeters to 1.5 meters apart. The sugar cane is covered with fertilizer and covered with soil. It takes around three weeks for the sugar cane to sprout, and when it does it usually develops additional secondary shoots which add to the density of the sugar cane crop and increase overall yield.
One planting can last anywhere from two to twelve years, though twelve years is an extreme record thus far only achieved by specialized Brazilian strains of sugar cane. Sugar cane is usually grown for around three seasons before the field needs to be replanted. During harvesting the cane is cut back low to the ground, and the remaining roots sprout new shoots each year. In order for the cane to regrow well, it is essential that the soil and roots are not damaged during harvest, which can happen if harvesters are too rough with the cane, or if heavy machinery is used in the harvesting process.
However even with the utmost care, sucrose content has a tendency to steadily decline from regrowth to regrowth. Other reasons for sugar cane and sucrose yield dipping below acceptable levels are pest damage, and diseases present both in the soil and carried by insects and other biological vectors.
When the yield dips below acceptable levels, or when the crop is too damaged to grow any more, then the remaining roots are plowed under the soil. In some cases the field will be replanted immediately in sugar cane. This is often the case if the field is cleared early on in the harvesting season, and if the soil has not been extensively depleated from many seasons of sugar cane growth.
If the field has been significantly depleted, or if it is harvested late in the season, then it may either be left bare in order to regenerate, or it will be replanted with another crop. Common alternate crops are sweet corn or rice. This is a technique known as fallow planting, and it not only combats pests and diseases in the soil, but it allows the soil to regenerate the types of nutrients which help sugar cane to grow well.
Different countries plant different strains of sugar cane, and some countries are more advanced than others when it comes to breeding various strains of sugar cane. Brazil is the undisputed leader in the field. The second largest exporter of sugar in the world, Thailand, has only six strains of sugar cane in common usage, but there are over 60 different strains of sugar cane currently being grown in Brazil. The largest sugar cane producing nation in the world, Brazil has developed a great many new strains of sugar cane, selecting for various traits, such as hardiness, the ability to grow in soil conditions that would not usually be conducive to the sucessful cultivation of sugar cane, higher sucrose yeild, resistance to disease and pests, and many other traits.