Performance of sweet sorghum cultivars to ethanol production at hydromorphic soils

Abstract

Sweet sorghum is a rustic crop, well adapted to tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions. It has wide adaptability and tolerance to abiotic stress. Due to its rapid growth rate, high biomass yields and the completely mecha- nized crop facilities, sweet sorghum has been considered as an excellent raw material to ethanol production. Cropping area in Brazil is about 28 million hectares covering regions with high water logging probability soils, from which 5.4 million hectares are located in the Rio Grande do Sul State and are suited to be incorporated into the production sys- tem. Aiming to evaluate the performance of 25 sweet sorghum cultivars under Southeast Rio Grande do Sul hydromor- phic soil conditions, the present work was designed. Promising results were obtained from the stand point that sweet sorghum can be considered as a complementary crop to sugarcane, since it can be harvested in a moment in which the sugarcane-derived alcohol distilleries are not under use. However, under the assumption of sweet sorghum as the sole crop to alcohol production from micro-distilleries in hydromorphic soil regions found in low-land areas, more in-depth studies on economic feasibility must be undertaken due to the lower biomass yields there obtained.