AbstractAustralia, Florida, and Louisiana are dominant sugar producers. We use piecewise regression to compare the growth in sugar recovery rates. To discuss sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) varietal development and cultural practices, we consider two scenarios: the entire period 1901 to 2018 and two subperiods using country‐specific breakpoints. The overall annual increase in the sugar recovery rate for all three regions ranged between 0.0180% for Australia and 0.0525% for Florida. In the first subperiod, Florida (0.2380%, 1928–1941) and Australia (0.1233%, 1901–1927) have the greatest annual gains, but in the second subperiod, Louisiana experiences the greatest annual gains (0.0813%, 1969–2018), followed by Florida (0.0531%, 1942–2018) and Australia (−0.0075%, 1928–2018). Louisiana's gains from 1969 to 2018 coincide with the adoption and use of the sugarcane cultivars CP 65‐357, CP 70‐321, LCP 85‐384, HoCP 96‐540, and L 01‐299.