Green plants store carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis and use them in a number of ways, allowing them to breathe and grow (germination, budding, flowering, etc.).
The available store of carbohydrates is conserved in specific organs: grains, bulbs, roots, and aboveground and underground stems. Carbohydrates are transformed by polymerization into starch (in potatoes, for example) or sucrose (in sugar beets and sugar cane).
A sugar cane stem contains from 10-15 % fibrous matter, 12-18% sugar in the form of sucrose, and a small quantity of glucose.