Sorghum could play big role as a biofuel crop

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Sorghum, a bio-fuel crop, can revolutionize the ethanol business and help start a booming bio-energy industry in the Midwest, reports our partner, the Purdue Exponent.

Sweet sorghum and biomass sorghum are close cousins to corn that can be used as substitutes for corn in the production of ethanol as a bio-fuel crop.

Clifford Weil, a Purdue professor of agronomy, said sorghum could serve as a feedstock for the ethanol business.

“It's not that it’s cheaper, it’s just that it’s not corn,” Weil said. “It’s a little heartier so it doesn’t require quite as much water or nitrogen and it doesn’t mind heat.”

There is a big fuss over whether to use corn at all and how much of it to use. Weil said whatever corn you’re putting in the ethanol, you’re not using to feed the cattle.

Nicholas Carpita, a Purdue professor of botany and plant pathology, said the government already limits ethanol production at 15 billion gallons a year, which is where we are now.

“We are up to 40 percent of our corn crop passing through a bio-ethanol refinery before it becomes food.” Carpita said. “The biomass crop can produce three to five times the amount of ethanol equivalent per acre than the grain corn that is currently in production.”

Sorghum is an annual crop, which means it needs to get replanted each year. This would allow for it to be mixed in with the rotation of different crops such as corn and soy beans.

“The major benefit is that it’s something that can be plugged into the system now,” Weil said. “It’s something farmers are familiar with. It’s something where you don’t need any really specialized fancy equipment to grow it.”

Perennial grass crops such as miscanthus and switch grass are also being used as bio-fuel crops. They are not annual plants and are already limited to only being grown where no agricultural food crop will grow. This is a big reason there is no cellulose bio-energy business today, according to Carpita.

“Nobody is going to invest in a half-billion dollar bio refinery for cellulose if there isn’t this perennial grass in the ground,” Carpita said. “Nobody is going to plant perennial grass on land and maintain it for the three to five years you need to get it up to production.”

The Midwest could serve as a great place for this business to start because of the assets it already has. This includes railroad systems to move the bio-fuel as well as hundreds of ethanol plants that could serve as bio refineries, Carpita said.

“If we are going to have a bio-fuels industry in the United States, it’s going to be in the Midwest,” Carpita said. “We’re poised to start it."