PERFORMANCE OF SWEET SORGHUM (Sorghum bicolor L.) GERMPLASM RESOURCES FOR THEIR INDUSTRIAL TRAITS UNDER EGYPTIAN CONDITIONS

Sweet sorghum is an emerging versatile crop species that offers grain for human consumption, fodder for livestock and ethanol for transportation purposes. The knowledge on industrial characters including juice quality traits and sugar components is an indispensable task for improving the crop at commercial level and establish sustainable value chain. In the current study a set of 68 sweet sorghum genotypes comprising land race collections and improved cultivars were evaluated for their fresh biomass yield, stripped stalk yield, dry matter yield, juice yield and quality traits (Purity%, Glucose Recovery%, Reducing sugar%, Sucrose%, and Total soluble sugar). The genotypes showed significant level of variation at p < 0.01 for all the eleven industrial traits regarding the five juice quality parameters measured. The juice purity of the genotypes ranged between 46.04% and 100%. The total soluble solids of the test genotypes had displayed a maximum value of 24.5 and a minimum of 10. The sucrose percent (pol) was found to range between 7.2% and 17.76% percent. This indicates the presence of promising possibility for the future improvement of the crop. The test genotypes were found to be clustered into five distinct clusters. Conclusively, the tested sweet sorghum genotypes displayed a broad range of variability in terms of all the measured industrial crops. The juice quality parameters in the test genotypes were found to be significantly higher as compared to different commercial improved cultivars. This indicates the presence of promising possibility for the future improvement of the crop. The test genotypes were found to be clustered into five distinct clusters. In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that the evaluated sweet sorghum genotypes had superior performance in terms of their juice yield and quality traits. Hence, they could be exploited in the future improvement of the crop as an industrial crop.