Preliminary study on the effect of plant population density and sweet sorghum cultivars on bioethanol production

摘要

Background: In recent years sweet sorghum has been used as a feedstock for bioethanol production. It has been identified as having drought tolerance, relatively low input cost and relatively high biomass yield. Results & discussion: In this study, two sweet sorghum cultivars, Sofra and Keller, were planted in three row spacings and three intra-row spacings. Biomass, stalk yield and juice volume were highest at 50 cm row spacing, at 50 t/ha, 40 t/ha and 7818 I/ha, respectively. Total sugar and sucrose content were highest at 15 cm intra-row spacing and it was 13 and 10%, respectively. The sweet sorghum cultivar Sofra had a higher stalk and ethanol yield than Keller. Conclusion: Based on our initial research, the highest ethanol yields under hot and dry climatic conditions were obtained using cultivar Sofra planted at 50 cm row spacing and 15 cm intra-row spacing. This is a preliminary communication and further research is needed to verify these findings.