Sugarcane burn and border patrol

We headed to Progresso, Mexico today to get Doug's crown finished and my cavity filled. Just a mile from our campground, we came upon the fields of sugarcane doing the burn off. We were glad we weren't going to be home all day since it would be snowing the burnt particles of leaves. This first photo is a field that has already been burned.



It is interesting how they harvest the sugarcane. Because sugarcane is a central tall stock (where the sugar is) and lots and lots of long leaves coming off of it the whole way to the top, they first burn the whole field. They have huge John Deere tractors pulling flame throwers along the edge of the field. The flame throwers light the brown dead leaves and it burns off most of the leaves as the fire goes across acres and acres of field. The field looks like the photo above after the burn. Then they come is with big harvesters that cut-off the 6' to 8' stalks at the ground and off to the plant they go. The plant starts growing again and the whole process starts over. Two crops a year down here if the field is irrigate and the field continues in production for about 6 years before it goes downhill.

The above photo is taken from the International Bridge at Progresso, Mexico. The USA is on the right and Mexico is on the left. The Rio Grande is quite small here due to an upstream power dam. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see a border patrol vehicle making its way along the dirt road at the top of the river bank. You can also see the infamous rusty steel border wall that sits at the top of the white concrete levy on the right. The border wall is only in certain areas (like there isn't any here by our campground).