E-book analyzes sorghum quality under different ripeners

Published on June 1, 2021, by Editora Atena, the book Technological quality of sorghum under the management of chemical ripeners, with 119 pages, shares technical-scientific content from multiple experimental trials on juice quality and economic purposes of sweet sorghum cultivars under management of ripeners.

According to Andre May, researcher at Embrapa Meio Ambiente and one of the authors, “maturators are natural or synthetic substances that condition plant growth and development by stimulating, or inhibiting, biochemical, metabolic and/or physiological processes. Ethephon, ethyl-trinexapac, glyphosate, methyl-sulfumeturon, thidiazuron and potassium nitrate are active ingredients, frequently applied in energy, extractive and fibrous crops, notably: cotton, rice, sugar cane, rapeseed, corn and wheat ”, he explains.

As the short commercial cycle of sweet sorghum is 90 to 120 days, this makes planning for mechanized harvesting and industrialization difficult. Thus, early genetic materials and growth regulators, maturators or phytoregulators would be alternatives to agroecosystem optimization. 

Agricultural systems for sweet sorghum production are attractive to the bioenergy market: savings in water and synthetic mineral fertilizers, substantial biomass yield, reasonable quality of juice and lignocellulose, commendable physiographic adaptability to tropical, subtropical and temperate climates, and photosynthetic potential of mitigating carbon dioxide emissions are arguments for the commercial exploitation of tropical grasses, which are competitive with rice, sugar cane and corn crops. 

In Brazil, sweet sorghum crops are implemented during periods of sugarcane field renewal, with the aim, fundamentally, of minimizing idleness in biorefineries, distilleries and grinding plants, keeping them in constant operation; The strategy even prevents the inflation of bioethanol prices at gas stations.

The authors of the e-book are Bruno Moreira, Ronaldo Viana, Paulo Figueiredo, Sergio Ramis, Marcelo Minhoto, André May, Vitor Cruz and Paulo Lopes and can be accessed here.