Louisiana sugarcane producers rely on plant breeders.

Growers can optimize nearly everything in the production process, including cultural practices, herbicide and insecticide treatments, and fertilization regimes, said Brayden Blanchard, who grew up on a sugarcane farm before becoming a geneticist working on plant breeding at the LSU AgCenter Sugar Research Station in St. Gabriel.

“The grower can tweak every other piece of his operation according to how to grow the crop the best way,” Blanchard said. “He can’t make a new variety. For us, that is a huge part of our impact.”

Sugarcane breeders with the AgCenter and the U.S. Department of Agriculture continually work to develop plant varieties that help producers harvest profitable crops that can produce more sugar while withstanding insects, diseases and other challenges. In this issue of Louisiana Agriculture, Blanchard explains the effect that a profoundly impactful sugarcane variety has had on generations of producers.

As a doctoral student, Blanchard studied genetic gains in the sugarcane industry over the past 50 years to prepare himself for his professional field.

“It’s important to know what challenges need to be met,” he said, explaining his motivation behind his research. “That means examining exactly where we are in the industry, what kind of challenges are out there and how we can address those challenges in a new variety.”

Working at the Sugar Research Station as a doctoral student, Blanchard loaded the crossing carts used to breed parent varieties. He decided which male and female plants to cross, and he knew many of the varieties were related to LCP 85-384, the most popular sugarcane variety in the state from 1999 to 2007. The variety, often called 384 in the industry, was produced through a cooperative effort between the AgCenter and the USDA Agricultural Research Service Sugarcane Research Unit.

Blanchard knew 384 well. His grandfather, father and uncle had planted it, and it accounted for more than 90% of the state’s sugarcane acreage in 2004. The variety boosted the amount of sugar from a harvest, increased the number of stalks in a field and had several other attributes that helped make sugarcane production much more profitable. Eventually, the variety succumbed to disease, and new varieties took its place.

However, its presence is still felt in Louisiana agriculture. Plant breeders crossed 384 with other varieties more than 1,000 times in search of the next great development.

“After a while, all of 384’s progeny were making better varieties than 384 was,” Blanchard said. “For us, that’s the best indicator that the breeding program is working. We’re making positive progress.”

With this knowledge, Blanchard devoted a chapter of his doctoral dissertation to understanding 384. He summarizes his findings on Page 16.

“Clearly, 384 has historically been an excellent parent, but as a breeder, you want to know why that is so,” Blanchard said. “Why does it contribute such good material to the breeding pipeline? How is it so efficient in transferring its favorable genes? How can we continue to take advantage of that?”

As the progeny of 384 became commercially available varieties on their own and carried on its positive traits, 384 began producing less relevant descendants in the breeding process. Blanchard and his colleagues mapped the genetics of recent commercial sugarcane releases and determined that this occurred around 2013. Today, 384 is used less on the crossing carts to make way for newer, better parents to be used in the breeding process.

“We know the favorable traits that 384 had have now been successfully translated into our modern varieties,” Blanchard said. “Now I can focus on our more modern varieties to continue that process.”

Kyle Peveto, the editor of Louisiana Agriculture, is a writer and editor in AgCenter Communications.

This article appears in the summer 2025 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.

Brayden Blanchard stands next to sugarcane plants on crossing carts at the LSU AgCenter Sugar Research Station in St. Gabriel. Photo by Olivia McClure