- Context (DTE): Sweet sorghum, indigenous to Africa, is a promising biofuel crop.
Biofuel Crops
- They are rich in starch, sugar, or oils. It can be converted into bioethanol (fermentation process).
- Bioethanol is ethanol produced from biological or plant-based sources. It emits fewer greenhouse gases than fossil fuels.
- Common biofuel crops: Sugarcane, maize, grain sorghum, sugar beet, rapeseeds, and sunflower.
Drawbacks of Conventional Biofuel Crops
- Susceptible to extreme weather events.
- Require high investment for fertilisers, chemicals, and irrigation.
- Compete with food production.
Potential of Sweet Sorghum
- It contains sucrose, glucose and fructose, which are essential for bioethanol production.
- Multiple uses
- It can produce grains, animal feed and sugary juice, making it unique among crops.
- Grains are used for Steamed bread, Porridge malt for traditional commercial beer production.
- They’re nutritionally rich, with high energy values, as well as essential minerals.
- Advantages Over Maize
- Resilient in arid climates.
- Provides biomass for animal feed. Nutritional residue after harvest enhances animal diets.
- Yields 8,102 litres of bioethanol per hectare (vs. maize’s 4,209 litres).
- Resilience
- Drought-resistant: can enter dormancy and resume growth.
- Uses stalk juice to survive water scarcity.
- Tolerates low water, nitrogen inputs, salinity, and drought.
To learn more, visit Biofuels.
Sweet Sorghum (Jowar)
- It is the most important millet crop.
- It is a C4 plant characterised by high photosynthetic efficiency.
- C4 plants include maize, sugarcane, and sorghum. They avoid photorespiration.
- It has emerged as a supplementary crop to sugarcane in dry land pockets for the production of ethanol.
- Varieties Rio, Dale, Brandes, Theis, Roma, Vani, Ramada and Keller.
- In India, it can be sown during June, coinciding with the southwest monsoon.
- The crop does not prefer high rainfall as high soil moisture after flowering may hamper sugar increase.
- All soils that have medium depth with good drainage are suited.
- Major pests: Sorghum shootfly and stem borer.
- Sweet sorghum varieties were first introduced in India from the US in the 1970s.

Credit: Agrosiaa
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