Sweet Sorghum Biofuel
Sweet Sorghum is an ideal crop for production of ethanol biofuel. Biofuels are more often produced from sugar cane or corn, but using sorghum for biofuel can have several advantages over these more traditional crops. Sweet sorghum requires very little fertilizer,http://www.ncagr.gov/cyber/kidswrld/plant/label.htm, can withstand dry conditions, grows quickly, and is already widely grown around the world. In addition, sorghum biofuel is made from the juice of the stem of the plant and does not affect grain production. This dual use production makes growing sweet sorghum for biofuel competitive with cheaper single use crops. Scientists are currently working on improved fast-growing strains of sweet sorghum in hopes of producing biofuel crops more efficiently in the future. One variety of sorghum recently developed can reach 20 feet high in a growing season and yield more than 2000 gallons of ethanol per acre. With continued high yields like these, biofuel may soon make its way from fringe technology to mainstay fuel source. With oil prices rising,http://www.oil-price.net/ around the globe at astonishing rates, sweet sorghum and other biofuel crops could be a key to solving our growing energy needs. The cars and planes of the future might be powered not by petroleum, but by a humble grain crop.