Assessment of ethanol yield associated characters in sweet sorghum

Sweet sorghum is a crop close to sugarcane in respect to its sucrose accumulation, and the juicy composition of the stem offers an excellent alternative feedstock apart from others such as sugar beets. In the present investigation nine sweet sorghum cultivars were grown in the field, IARI, New Delhi; all the ethanol yield associated morphological characters were recorded, sorghum cultivars samples were analyzed at harvesting. The association analysis had clearly brought out that among the inherent genotypic characteristics stem girth, number of internodes per plant, juice content of sorghum were very important for increase in juice yield. Among the other associated characters, green cane yield and consequently percent juice recovery with higher total soluble sugar content were important parameters for ethanol yield in sorghum. It is therefore, suggested that these inherent genotypic characteristics could be exploited in identifying suitable cultivars for the purpose of ethanol production.