It is urgent to advance the discussion on the guidelines that Brazil should adopt to diversify energy sources in order to reduce dependency and promote the replacement of fossil fuels. This is one of the main ways to reduce the already deleterious negative impact that human activities are causing to the environment. This agenda includes the development of technologies for the expansion of sugar...

Sugarcane-molasses-based post-methanated distillery waste is well known for its toxicity, causing adverse effects on aquatic flora and fauna. Here, it has been demonstrated that there is an abundant mixture of androgenic and mutagenic compounds both in distillery sludge and leachate. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis showed dodecanoic acid, octadecanoic acid, n-pentadecanoic...

Sugarcane molasses is a rich source of antioxidant materials with peroxyl radical scavenging effects. To explore the potent antioxidant activity of sugarcane molasses against 2,2'-azobis(2-amidinopropane) dihydrochloride (AAPH)-induced peroxyl radicals, 7 methanolic fractions of sugarcane molasses (F1-F7) were separated via bioassay-guided fractionation and evaluated by oxygen radical absorbanc...

The graminous host range and sources of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench.] plant resistance, including cross-resistance from greenbug, Schizaphis graminum (Rondani), were studied for the newly emerging sugarcane aphid, Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner), in greenhouse no-choice experiments and field evaluations. The sugarcane aphid could not survive on field corn, Zea mays (L.), Teff grass, Era...

Several geopolitical factors, aggravated by worries of global warming, have been fueling the search for and production of renewable energy worldwide for the past few years. Such demand for renewable energy is likely to benefit the sugarcane ethanol industry in Brazil, not only because sugarcane ethanol has a positive energetic balance and relatively low production costs, but also because Brazil...

Sugarcane white leaf disease is caused by plant pathogenic phytoplasmas that are transmitted to the plant by the leafhopper Matsumuratettix hiroglyphicus (Matsumura). To determine whether there are other insect vectors that transmit this disease pathogen, leafhopper species in sugarcane, Saccharum officinarum L., fields in northeastern Thailand were monitored by using light traps. Sixty-nine le...

The Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loftini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is the key pest of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) in Texas; it can attack several grassy crop and noncrop host plants and has spread into Louisiana. Through small-plot, commercial field, and pheromone trap experiments, this study demonstrates that the pest uses corn, Zea mays L., more than sugarcane and sorghum, Sorghum bicolo...

To understand the molecular basis of sugarcane-smut interaction, it is important to identify sugarcane genes that respond to the pathogen attack. High-throughput tag-sequencing (tag-seq) analysis by Solexa technology was performed on sugarcane infected with Sporisorium scitaminea, which should have massively increased the amount of data available for transcriptome profile analysis. After mappin...

Saccharum officinarum is one of the most cultivated hybrid varieties among the sugarcane varieties. In sugarcane plant sucrose is the major carbohydrate which can be stored and transported. Different physiological and biochemical studies on this crop report that invertase activity and sucrose concentration some how are key limiting step in the process of sucrose accumulation. Significant effort...