Effect of Cover Crops and Nitrogen Fertilization on Juice Yield, Sugar Content, and Biomass Yield of Sweet Sorghum

The purpose of the study was to analyze the effect of cover crops and nitrogen fertilization on sweet sorghum biomass yield, amount of juice produced and sugar components in the juice (sucrose fructose and glucose) when grown on a marginal land. The sweet sorghum was planted in 2013 at Fort Valley State University research farm with 4 cover crops (control, rye, vetch and rye& vetch mix) and 2 nitrogen rates (control vs 90 kg /ha) with 3 replications. Juice was extracted from 20 plants per plot. The extracted juice was analyzed for sucrose, glucose and fructose using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The analysis of variance (ANOVA) for role of nitrogen fertilizers showed no significant difference between control and 90 Kg N/ha for biomass yield, juice yield, sucrose, glucose and fructose content. Cover crops when compared with no cover crops, showed no significant difference except for sucrose content at 90% confidence interval. Biomass yield was found significantly different only for vetch and rye treatments. In addition, when sugar components were analyzed with respect to quantity of juice produced, no significant relationship was observed in terms of quantity of individual components. The results seems promising that sweet sorghum can be grown on marginal land in absence of cover crops and nitrogen fertilization without impacting biomass yield, amount of juice produced and sugar content in the juice. Further research is needed to validate the findings.