July 26, 2007

Ethanol finds another source in sweet sorghum

As the production and use of biofuels is increasing, the Indian Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is actively promoting sweet sorghum (variety named NTJ-2) to dryland farmers as another source of ethanol.

Sweet sorghum has been proven to be more beneficial compared to sugarcane and corn as it requires only half of the water required to grow corn and one eighth of the water required to grow sugarcane. The cultivation cost is also less when compared to sugarcane.

The juice from the stalks is used for fuel alcohol production while the leftover stalks (called stillage) after juice extraction can be used for animal feed, according to Dr. Belum Reddy, Principal Scientist of ICRISAT's Sorghum breeding. The sweet sorghum stalks are fed to cattle and the digestibility is higher compared to grain sorghum.

A private distillery in collaboration with ICRISAT is targeting around 2,500 acres to planting sweet sorghum and nearly 1,600 acres are already being covered during this year.

Field experiments conducted have proved that from one hectare of sweet sorghum, a farmer can harvest about 30 tonnes of fresh stalk.