effect of time of planting on cane yield and quality characters in sweet sorghum效应的时间种植甜高粱的甘蔗产量和品质的人物.pdfVIP

Journal of Sustainable Bioenergy Systems, 2012, 2, 1-9 1 / 10.4236/jsbs.2012.21001 Published Online March 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jsbs) Effect of Time of Planting on Cane Yield and Quality Characters in Sweet Sorghum * Chamarthy Venkata Ratnavathi , Sivanuri Ravi Kumar, Bathula Swaroop Vijay Kumar, Dasari Gopala Krishna, Jagannath Vishnu Patil Directorate of Sorghum Research (Formerly National Research Centre for Sorghum), Hyderabad, India * Email: ratnavathi@sorghum.res.in, ratnanrcs@ Received January 24, 2012; revised February 20, 2012; accepted March 6, 2012 ABSTRACT Sweet sorghum unlike grain sorghum has potential to accumulate sugars in stalks similar to sugarcane. Short duration and lower water requirements of sweet sorghum are other advantages over sugarcane. Sorghum is usually grown in kharif and rabi seasons. As an energy crop, industry demands supply of green cane as raw material through out the year. Hence this agronomic study was conducted to determine suitable time of planting of sweet sorghum under the agro cli- matic conditions prevailing in India, so that continuous supply of raw material is assured for factory operations through out the year, especially during the lean period of sugarcane crushing. Various physical and chemical characters of plant and stem juice were studied by taking up bimonthly plantings at four locations using 12 genotypes of sweet sorghum in the first year and quarterly plantings at four locations using 10 genotypes (8 genotypes common in both years) in the second year. Of the six plantings, planting