The recent hard freeze in south Louisiana has not stopped the sugarcane harvest, but it has placed pressure on some growers to get remaining cane out of the fields quickly, according to experts at the Louisiana State University AgCenter.

Since freezing temperatures tend to stop sugar production and lead to deterioration of sugarcane, the few farmers who still have cane in the fields need to complete the harvest before the weather turns sour, according to the experts.

“Sucrose doesnot deteriorate overnight, but the clock is ticking,” said Dr. Kenneth Gravois, director of the LSU AgCenter’s Sugar Research Station at St. Gabriel, adding, “Warm and rainy weather will increase deterioration.

“But as long as the weather is cool and refrigerator-like, the crop will keep in the fields.”

Gravois explained there is a window of one to two weeks to get the remainder of the crop harvested. But there is not much sugarcane left in the fields.

What is left should be harvested before the crop in the field shows major deterioration, Gravois said.

Of the 17 mills in Louisiana, only three were still operating Jan. 9 and were expected to finish by the end of the week, according to Charlie Melancon, president and general manager of the American Sugar Cane League in Thibodaux.

Gravois said this year’s yields are in the top five historically for the state but are not as good as the 1999 or 2000 crops.

“1999 and 2000 were records,” he said. “This year is above average. All in all, it’s a good crop.”

Melancon agreed with this assessment.

“Overall, the crop was a decent crop. It matched last year’s harvest,” he said.

Melancon estimates the final harvest will average slightly more than 33 tons of cane per acre with sugar yield about 5 pounds per ton more than last year’s crop.

“There were some pockets where farmers were devastated by weather abnormalities where yields were 30-35 percent below expectations,” he added.

Although farmers were hampered by rains a couple of times, Melancon said about 90 percent of the harvest was uneventful.

Even the late freeze since Jan. 1 “doesn’t appear to have caused a problem,” he said.

Although final figures on this year’s crop are incomplete, the LSU AgCenter reported the 2000 crop produced nearly $363 million in on-farm income and almost $232 million in value-added income in Louisiana. Nearly 900 farmers produce sugarcane in 24 parishes, including St. John the Baptist, St. Charles and St. James.