*1. WATER - Sorghum drinks less, gives you water back.*
Corn needs a lot of water. About 500-800 mm of rain for one crop, and if rain fails, it fails completely. Sugarcane needs even more - 1200-2000 mm and 12-14 months in the field.
Sweet sorghum needs only 300-400 mm and is ready in 3.5 to 4 months. Its roots go deep, 2 meters, so it can find water when corn wilts. It can handle 2-3 weeks of dry spell without dying.
Best part: When you crush sorghum stalks, 70-75% of the st
alk
is juice, which is water. In a sugar factory, when they boil that juice to
make sugar or ethanol, that water evaporates and they collect it back. From 1
acre of sweet sorghum you can get 15-20 tons of stalks, which gives you
8,000-10,000 liters of clean water back. With corn you get zero water back.
With sugarcane you get water too, but you had to use 3 times more water to
grow it.For a farmer in a dry area, this means you are producing water, not just using it.
*2. ETHANOL - Faster money, less cost.*
-Corn ethanol: You have to harvest grain, dry it, grind it, cook it, add enzymes, then ferment. It needs fertilizer, tractor, dryer, electricity. 1 acre of corn gives you about 350-400 liters of ethanol.
Sugarcane ethanol: Good yield, 2,500-3,000 liters per acre, but you must wait 12 months, you need a big factory nearby, and you cannot eat the crop if the market falls.
-Sweet sorghum: You crush the stalk like sugarcane and the juice is already sugar water. You can ferment it directly the same day. No drying, no enzymes. 1 acre gives you 1,200-1,500 liters of ethanol in just 4 months. So in the same 12 months that sugarcane needs for one crop, you can grow sorghum 2 times and get 2,500-3,000 liters - same as sugarcane but with less water.
And you still have the grain on top of the plant. That grain is 2-3 tons per acre and you can sell it for food or feed your chickens. With sugarcane you have no grain. With corn you have only grain, no sugary stalk.
So sorghum gives you food + fuel from the same field.