A giant tropical grass domesticated in New Guinea whose stem is nearly a fifth sugar by weight. The world's largest crop by tonnage, sugarcane built the plantation economies of the Caribbean and Brazil on enslaved labor, and remains the source of most of the world's sugar and much of its ethanol fuel. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Scientific Name Domestication Region Domesticated When (Circa) Era
Era (category) Connections
Associated With
Sugarcane is consistently named among the crops diffused westward through the medieval Islamic world during the Arab Agricultural Revolution.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Sugarcane (Wikipedia)
- lead: a species of tall, perennial grass
- lead: used for sugar production
- lead: sugarcane reeds used to make pens, mats, screens, and thatch
View the Source2. Wikipedia: Sugarcane
WikipediaHistory sectionQuote, History section
S. officinarum was first domesticated in New Guinea and the islands east of the Wallace Line by Papuans; beginning around 6,000 BP, several strains were selectively bred from the native Saccharum robustum.
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