An eye toward ethanol from sweet sorghum

For the first time, ethanol will be on the schedule when the National Sweet Sorghum Producers And Processors Association (NSSPPA) holds it annual convention, February 22-24 at the National Parks Resort Lodge in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

The Sweet Sorghum For Ethanol Conference will be in cluded with the association's conference. For more info on the ethanol sessions, call Laura Karlen at 515-320-3552.

I've wondered why more attention hasn't been paid to sweet sorghum as an energy source, since the plants tend to be somewhat more drought resistant than corn and can be grown on a wider range than sugar cane, even into the Midwest.

NSSPPA has an FAQ page that's worth visiting. An excerpt:

"The syrup was an important sweetener for many small communities well into this century and even today is still locally important. In the 1860's sorghum cultivation was concentrated in the Midwest, but by the 1890's it had become predominately a southern crop. Production reached a peak of 24 million gallons in the 1880's and then declined over the next century in the face of competition from glucose syrups. By 1975, the U.S. Agricultural Census reported just 2,400 acres producing less than 400,000 gallons of syrup. There has been a recovery from this low production with 25,000 to 30,000 acres planted for syrup today."

Until the early 1980s, USDA operated a sweet sorghum research station in Meridian, Miss. A couple of long-time sorghum syrup makers told me at a recent farmer's market visit in Jackson, Miss., that they're still producing syrup from varieties that came out of the breeding program.

Don't confuse sweet sorghum syrup with mollasas, which is a byproduce of regular sugar processing.

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