A number of driving forces, including the soaring global crude oil prices and environmental concerns in both developed and developing nations has triggered a renewed interest in the recent years on the R&D of biofuel crops. In this regard, many countries across the globe are investing heavily in the bioenergy sector for R&D to increase their energy security and reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels. Currently, most of the biofuel requirement is met by sugarcane in Brazil and corn in the United States, while biodiesel from rapeseed oil in Europe. Sweet sorghum has been identified as a unique biofuel feedstock in India since it is well adapted to Indian agro-climatic conditions and more importantly it does not jeopardize food security at the cost of fuel. Sweet sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is considered as a SMART new generation energy crop as it can accumulate sugars in its stalks similar to sugarcane, but without food¬¬-fuel trade-offs and can be cultivated in almost all temperate and tropical climatic conditions and has many other advantages. The grain can be harvested from the panicles at maturity. There is no single publication detailing the agronomic and biochemical traits of tropical sweet sorghum cultivars and hybrid parents. Hence, an attempt is made in this publication- “Characterization of improved sweet sorghum cultivars” to detail the complete description of cultivars. This book serves as a ready reference on the detailed characterization of different improved sweet sorghum genotypes following the PPVFRA guidelines for the researchers, entrepreneurs, farmers and other stakeholders to identify the available sweet sorghum cultivars and understand their yield potential in tropics.
Dr. P. Srinivasa Rao is a Senior Scientist working in the area of sorghum breeding at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, Hyderabad, India. His current areas of research interest are on biofuels, resistance breeding, brown midrib mutants, energy and sweet sorghums, sucrose transporters as well as wide hybridization. He obtained his Ph.D. (Genetics) 1998 from Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He is a recipient of DBT- postdoctoral fellowship (2005-2008) and worked on interactions of bacterial leaf blight pathogen with R-gene pyramids of Rice with Dr. Ramesh V Sonti at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, India. He served as Scientist (Plant Breeding) for seven years in Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Hyderabad, India. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award (2011) from Pampanga Agricultural College, Philippines. He is serving as an editorial board member of Sugar Tech. and Rangeland Science. He has 28 research publications in various national and international journals, 6 reviews, 15 book chapters and 3 books to his credit.
Dr. C. Ganesh Kumar is a Senior Scientist working in the area of chemical biology with the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, India. His current areas of research interest are on biofuels, bioactives, biosurfactants, enzymes and biotransformations. He obtained his Ph.D. (Microbiology) 1997 from National Dairy Research Institute (ICAR), Karnal, Haryana under the guidance of Prof. M.P. Tiwari. During his Ph.D. tenure, he also received a DAAD short-term fellowship and worked with Prof. K.-D. Jany, Director and Head, Centre for Molecular Biology, Federal Research Centre for Nutrition, Karlsruhe, Germany. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at various reputed organizations like Department of Biochemistry, Bose Institute, Kolkata,India; Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, Inha University, Inchon, South Korea with Prof. Chung-Soon Chang and at the Bioproduction Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Sapporo, Japan, with Prof. Isao Yumoto as a JSPS fellow on different extremophiles and their metabolites. He is a recipient of the AMI Young Scientist Award (1999) from the Association of Microbiologists of India, Fellow (2009) of the Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy, Eminent Bioengineer Award (2010) from the Society for Applied Biotechnology and IICT Gaurav Samman Award (2010). He has 45 research publications in various national and international journals, 10 reviews, 2 book chapters and 3 patents to his credit.
