Development of Highly Digestible Grain Sorghum Lines Suitable for Efficient Dry-Grind Ethanol Production

摘要

Low-world oil prices but supportive government policies provide growing environmental and energy security support favorable for the bioethanol market. The need to generate large and sustainable supply of biomass to make bioethanol will require the development of crops grown specifically for bio-energy production. Given the existing history of genetic improvement and infrastructure available for sorghum, (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) hybrids will be one of the several species dedicated as energy crop and the subject of this study. Texas A & M University Sorghum Breeding Program has developed hybrid sorghum varieties with high protein digestibility and improved starch digestibility. Most of the previous research on grain sorghum focused on the digestibility of sorghum protein from the nutritional point of view. The aim of the current study was to select best sorghum lines from relatively large and diverse sorghum samples that breeders are currently working with for the development of new low energy input liquefaction, sac-charification and fermentation methodologies to produce bioethanol. Limited researches studies report on the performance of sorghum varieties in ethanol fermentation in relation to the protein and starch digestibility of sorghum.