Sorghum and Maize Biomass, Protein and Bioethanol Yields in a Semi-Arid Environment of Central Greece

We investigated biomass and protein productivity of Sudan sorghum and maize crops in relation to nitrogen fertilization (6, 15 and 35 g m­2) in central Greece. Sudan sorghum was cultivated under two management techniques: (a) as a row crop similar to maize cultivation (row­to­row distance: 75 cm; observed shoot density: 27 per m2) with a single harvest per year; and (b) as a very dense crop (row­to­row distance: 10 cm; observed shoot density: 155 per m2) with a three harvests per year, each when plants reached 1 m in height. Results indicated that Sudan sorghum grown at high plant density and harvested three times per season gave 67, 23 and 40% higher fresh, dry, and protein biomass yields, respectively, than maize. This superiority was explained by the fast increase in leaf area early in the season and by the high leaf/stem ratio at harvest. However, this cultivation strategy only yielded well at large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer (P
Proceedings of the 19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-10 June 2011, Berlin, Germany, pp. 720-726