Dig a one-block hole and fill it with water. Then, place sugarcane next to it. Any length will work. Proceed to fill in the water block with any other block. The sugarcane will still be there, until it is updated (if you shorten the length of the sugarcane, if you put a block directly next to the sugarcane, if you break the block the sugarcane is on, etcetera).

Works in Survival & Creative.

Would've posted a screenshot of this, but apparently Jira is missing a token from my attachment.
edit: nevermind, think i fixed it