Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Instructional Dairy Farm, Nagla, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar (India) during Kharif seasons of 2011 and 2012 to study the effect of tillage, fertilizer placement and nitrogen levels on green foliage, brix, sucrose, juice and ethanol production of sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) in Mollisols of Uttarakhand. The experimental results revealed that the highest growth attributes, fodder yield, brix%, sugar%, juice and ethanol yield were recorded under subsoiling-cum-differential rate placement of fertilizer. The subsoiling-cum-differential rate placement produced 16.7, 26.7 and 32.7% higher green fodder and 19.2, 33.4 and 42.2% higher dry fodder yield than conventional tillage, subsoiling and subsoiling-cum-deep placement, respectively. Similarly, the brix%, sucrose%, juice and ethanol yield were recorded 21.9, 13.2, 31.2 and 45.0% higher under subsoiling-cum-differential rate placement than conventional tillage, respectively. The nitrogen levels also influenced the quality attributes of sweet sorghum with 8.1, 21.3, 36.4 and 74.0% higher brix%, sucrose%, juice and ethanol yield, respectively under 120 kg N/ha than control, however the green and dry fodder yield increased significantly up to 80 kg N/ha. It is therefore concluded that the fertilizer should be placed at differential depth (20cm and 50cm) coupled with 80 kg N/ha for higher green foliage as well as brix, sucrose, juice and ethanol production of sweet sorghum in Mollisols of Uttrakhand and may be replicated in similar agro-climatic zones of India.