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Prospect of Sorghum as a Biofuel Feedstock

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/9054/
 
Title Prospect of Sorghum as a Biofuel Feedstock
 
Creator Srinivasa Rao, P
Lizarazu, W Z
Bellmer, D
Monti, A
 
Subject Sorghum
 
Description In this chapter we review the genetic variability and related agronomic
perspectives of sweet sorghum. These characteristics are mainly
presented and discussed taking in mind quantitative and qualitative
traits of sweet sorghum as a multipurpose feedstock. The recent
remarkable expansion of bioenergy crops, encouraged by favorable
biofuel policies, has boosted intensive research programs worldwide
on the use of sweet sorghum as feedstock for food, fodder, energy
and in other industrial applications. In energy terms, sorghum is the
only feedstock where ethanol can be produced either through grain,
sweet juice, syrup or biomass, in other words having relevance to fi rst,
second and third generation biofuels. As a row crop, management
practices developed for other conventional crops under a wide range
of agro-climatic conditions can be easily adapted to cultivate sweet
sorghum, thanks to its versatility and low input requirements. However,
harvesting, transportation from fi eld to processor and processing
remain as past and present unsolved problems. Moreover the large
diversity in traits, important for biofuel production, opens up excellent
opportunities for sweet sorghum improvement through traditional
breeding and modern molecular tools. In general biofuel candidate
traits present across the sorghum genus are governed by multiple
genes, and both additive and dominance components of gene action
can be exploited while breeding for high stalk sugar and juice yielding
genotypes. In order to take full advantage of all carbohydrate forms it
would be advantageous to develop specialized cultivars that allow a
single process to utilize all plant components for liquid fuel production.
However, more focused research in this area may aid in enhancing the
economic viability and environmental sustainability of sweet sorghum
value chain.
 
Publisher CRC Press (Taylor & Francis)
 
Contributor Wang, Y H
Upadhyaya, H D
Kole, C
 
Date 2014
 
Type Book Section
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/9054/1/Chapter%205.pdf
Srinivasa Rao, P and Lizarazu, W Z and Bellmer, D and Monti, A (2014) Prospect of Sorghum as a Biofuel Feedstock. In: Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Sorghum. Series on Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Crop Plants . CRC Press (Taylor & Francis), Boca Raton, pp. 303-330. ISBN 9781482210088