Is it true tat they can make ethnanol from sugar cane?

Why does a sugar cane lose its sugar/sucrose content? and what does the sucrose decay into?

• i'm going science project on sugar and i'm confused about why sugar cane spontaneously lose it's sugar content if you don't harvest the canes fast enough. and what is the chemical equation if the sucrose in the cane does decompose and why thanks

• Answer:

  My *guess* is that the plant is making sucrose as a raw material for the production of cellulose and other polymers, ie, the molecules comprising the structural elements of the plant [and all its other tissues]. Sucrose is also a way to get energy from one cell to another. So you want to harvest when sucrose inventory is highest. With some [leaf, root, and stem] vegetables, if you wait too long to harvest, the plants "bolt" and start producing seed, which hugely decreases the edible part of the plant, since making the seed consumed a LOT of energy. That might be going on here, or it could be that past the peak the plant starts growing a bunch more roots [which you can't harvest] so the harvest declines.