October 2025.
Sorrel, Louisiana.

In other trips through Louisiana, we made our way to New Orleans via I-10 or skipped the Big Easy by using the I-12 bypass. On our fall trip in October 2025, we avoided the Interstates and followed a more southerly route via US Highway 90 to New Orleans. Taking this route, we learned about Louisiana’s largest field crop, sugar cane. As we drove along US 90, we could see that the 1.5 billion dollar harvest was well underway. Along the roadside, tractors and harvesters worked the fields, pulling in cane by the ton.

Sugar cane towers over the roadside, and as I later learned, it looms just as large in Louisiana’s economy. Our recent trip to Hawaii taught me that sugar cane is no longer part of the islands’ agricultural rhythm. I assumed then that sugar cane was something America imported in bulk, not something grown at home. Southern Louisiana quickly corrected that notion. Its fields yield over a billion dollars’ worth of cane each year, even as the United States spends twice that on imports. Add Florida and Texas to the mix, however, and the domestic harvest rivals what arrives from abroad—shipments flowing in from Mexico, Brazil, and beyond.

Our detour along US 90 revealed more than just a new route—it introduced us to the scale of Louisiana’s sugarcane industry. Mile after mile of tall green stalks confirmed that this billion‑dollar crop is not only the state’s largest field harvest but also a vital part of America’s sweet supply.

About the photos: As we drove along US 90, I captured several photos of the harvest from my back seat viewpoint. The images were captured on my Samsung S25 Ultra in Pro Mode, allowing me to set a fast shutter speed of 1/1000 sec to eliminate motion blur from the moving vehicle. The opening panorama was created in Adobe Lightroom Classic from two images captured in succession. The photos had noise reduction and Adaptive Color presets applied before being sent to Luminar Neo for final touches. The panoramic view was cropped to remove a power pole, and Luminar Neo’s Remove Powerlines AI removed the lines draping across the image. For those interested in pixel peeping or viewing the metadata, I posted these photos in 2K HD on Flickr here.

I invite fellow bloggers to join in by creating their own Cellpic Sunday posts. There’s no set theme. The first rule is that your photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or other mobile device. The second rule is simple: link your challenge response to this post or drop a comment here with your link so others can find it. And remember, despite the name, there’s no penalty for sharing on a day other than Sunday.

John Steiner