Sweetfuel Project Methodology Cultural practices
WP5: Cultural practices & plant modelling
The overall objective of WP5 is to understand the agronomic determinants of optimized yield in sweet sorghum, evaluate on the base of agronomic traits material used and produced by breeding WPs and develop a sweet sorghum model.
Field evaluation, growth chambers and laboratory tests will be used to identify major yield constrains and diagnostic trait linked to the yield. Parameters as water consumption, nutrient uptake, time and energy consumption of harvest and field operation will be collected and sent to the partners in charge of environmental and economic assessments.
Specific objectives are to:
1. Assess the yield response of selected genotypes of sweet sorghum having different cycle length to sowing time, water and nitrogen dose in dry and temperate regions;
2. Calculate water, radiation an nitrogen use efficiencies.
3. Identify interesting traits for breeding programs (photosynthesis rate, root length density, 13C-labelled content, stomatal conductance, chlorophyll and pigments content, fluorescence emission etc.).
4. Evaluate storability of the cut material as obtained by existing harvest machines.
5. Simulate different genotypes management under different climatic scenarios for identification of the target populations of environments (TPE) and evaluation of different production scenarios and associated risks.
WP5 tasks are:
Task 5.1. Evaluation of integrated stress responses in field conditions
Task 5.2. Evaluation of stress responses in controlled environment
Task 5.3. Optimization of harvesting techniques and logistics
Task 5.4. Development of a crop model for sorghum
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