Objective
1) To define agronomic potentialities of sweet sorghum as industrial and/ or energy crop,
2) To test the feasibility of different industrial or energetic conversion processes,
3) To investigate geographical extension and economic benefit of this crop at the European level according to biological, technical and economic parameters.
Experiments carried out in Madrid in 1989 on biomass production of sweet sorghum cv Keller are expanded to be used as preliminary data in the EC Project: coordinated R and D Activity in the Sector of Biomass Production-Sweet Sorghum Network. 3 experimental areas are covered: aerial biomass production during a cultivation cycle; potential productivity on aerial biomass in relation to absorbed solar radiation; and distribution of sugars content in stems. Sweet sorghum cv Keller yielded a high productivity in nonlimiting conditions of mineral supply and watering. Harvest should be made in late autumn and in harmony with climate conditions as a great autumnal growth was observed.
The reorganization of agricultural land use in Europe could lead to the development of sorghum as a raw material for energy, fiber or sugar production. Before enlarging this species area it is necessary to study the productivity of the different types under various growth conditions. The use of crop models can facilitate these studies for the estimation of potential production and for the simulation of genetic and environmental effects. The relationship between aerial dry matter production and the amount of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the crop (PARa) provides an interesting framework to analyse the production and allows a rough estimation of the potential productivity. In this method dry matter is considered as the product of intercepted PAR and radiation use efficieny (RUE) which are components of the crop model SORKAM.
In this study radiation use efficiency of sweer sorghum was similar to maximum values observed on grain genotypes but the RUE for sudan grass or sudan grass hybrids appeared lower. Instantaneous leaf photosynthesis was measured in the field for sweet sorghum (cv Keller) and sorghum sudan grass hybrid (cv Oasis) with insignificant responses. From estimation of below dry matter at harvesting in the field it appears that the root-shoot ratio of sweet sorghum cv Keller is lower than sorghum type cv Oasis. Differences in RUE for total dry matter of the 2 species are small so the variation of aerial productivity between the 2 types of sorghum results mainly from the root-shoot repartition of dry matter.
3 aspects, which are important for a techno- economical evaluation of sweet sorghum as a raw material for energy and industry have been considered: length of the processing period; possible losses of fermentable sugars; and the byproduct yield. In southern Germany, sweet sorghum is available for processing only for a period of 6 to 10 weeks. Some losses of fermentable sugars have to be considered during the steps from harvesting to processing. When extracting sweet sorghum mechanically, a high yield of bagasse with an energy content of up to 160 GJ per hectare can be gained as a byproduct.
The work program covers studies concerning all the sectors from production (eco-physiology, agronomic trials and genetic improvement), harvesting, storage to industrial conversion (classical and new processes).
These scientific groups are identified in this project :
1) Productivity (7 EC countries) :
This group is using common methodology and is organised in a network. It will define the biological potentiality of this species according to climatic and soil conditions and will propose a productivity model which will contribute to objective number 3.
In addition, a specific program will be emphasised on water stress and water efficiency studies.
Genetic improvement studies, focused on low temperature resistance, preco- city and resistance to lodging, are included and new cultivars will be compared in the European productivity network.
2) Harvesting and storage (2 EC countries) :
According to European conditions (climatic and farming structure...) this group will define the best conditions for harvesting and storage and will adapt existing US machines.
This is one key-point of the global process.
3) Industrial and energy transformation (3 EC countries) :
This group will optimize existing industrial transformation and emphasize on one hand processes at the farm scale level and on the other hand new utilisation of this raw material such as fibre, pulp for paper or pyrolytic oil.
This group is linked with other Joule contracts which are specific to process studies such as thermochemical conversion.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology materials engineering fibers
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels biomass energy
- social sciences economics and business economics production economics productivity
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture industrial crops fodder
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels energy conversion
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Coordinator
75341 Paris
France
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