Effect of Different Crushing Treatments on Sweet Sorghum Juice Extraction and Sugar Quality Traits in Different Seasons

Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is an important biofuel crop that produces both food (grain) and biofuel (from stalk juice). The objective of this investigation was to assess the effect of different crushing treatments on juice extraction and sugar quality traits of sweet sorghum cultivars grown in different seasons. Three sweet sorghum cultivars along with three stalk crushing treatments namely (i) stalk only crushed (leaf, sheath and panicle removed), (ii) stalk plus sheath crushed (leaf and panicle removed), and (iii) whole plant crushed (but only panicle removed) were assessed in split–split-plot design during 2009 rainy (Kharif) and 2009 post-rainy (Rabi) seasons. The percent juice extraction and juice sugar quality traits were significant (P ≤ 0.05) in different crop seasons, but were non-significant among cultivars and crushing treatments. Sweet sorghum cultivars grown during rainy season had significantly higher total soluble sugars (TSS), sucrose and purity per cent than in post-rainy season. Experimental variety SPSSV 30 showed significant superiority by 25 % in TSS and sucrose content than check namely CSH 22SS. Effect of crushing treatments on juice extraction and sugar quality traits were non-significant except juice brix. It is recommended that the complete sweet sorghum stalks after removing the panicle can be crushed without the need for removing leaf and sheath both in large research trial samples, and bulk harvested stalks at biofuel processing facility. This will reduce processing time at the sugar mill and helps avoiding rapid deterioration of stalk sugars in the ambient field condition, as removal of leaf and sheath in sweet sorghum is highly cumbersome unlike sugarcane, where it is relatively easy

Developing Post Rainy Sorghum Seed System in India

The crops grown under rainfed agriculture are described as farming practices that rely on rainfall for crop production and their seed systems describe, how farmers in these regions are sourcing seed for cultivating these crops. The objective of this chapter is to share information, experiences and some success stories of seed value chain models developed for production and supply of improved varieties to resource poor farmers to enhance production of rainfed crops. Majority of crop varieties grown under rainfed agriculture system are open pollinated varieties or self-pollinated crops especially food crops, cereals and legumes grown in semi-arid tropics of the globe. The importance of rainfed agriculture varies regionally but produces most food for poor communities in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa more than 95 per cent of the farmed land is rainfed, while the corresponding figure for Latin America is almost 90 per cent, for South Asia about 60 per cent, for East Asia 65 per cent and for the Near East and North Africa 75 per cent..

Innovative Seed Consortium Strengthening the Postrainy Sorghum Seed Systems in India

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) is grown both in rainy (Kharif) and postrainy (Rabi) seasons in India for multiple uses. Of the total sorghum area of 6.5 m ha, postrainy sorghum is grown on ~ 4 m ha area in the black soils under receding soil moisture, after the cessation of rains. The majority of postrainy sorghum production is concentrated across the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (Trivedi, 2008; Rana et al., 1999; Hosmani and Chittapur, 1997). Postrainy sorghum growing areas are characterized by low rain fall, low temperatures at flowering time and terminal drought and most of the times sorghum is the only crop option for meeting the food and fodder needs of communities in these areas (Murty et al., 2007; Pray and Nagarajan, 2009; Belum Reddy et. al., 2012; Kholova et al., 2013). Because of these constraints the productivity of postrainy sorghum is low (grain yield ~0.7 t ha‐1). However the grain and stover quality obtained from postrainy sorghum is preferred by the farmers and markets, therefore of higher value. Across postrainy sorghum ecologies, the landrace cultivars possessing white bold lustrous grains, with photoperiod sensitivity, cold tolerance, shoot fly resistance and terminal drought tolerance, like M 35‐1, Dagadi are popular with farmers. There are some improved varieties developed by Indian national program but they are not available to most farmers. The seed replacement ratio is very low (20%) (Fig 1). Further, the market opportunities for grain and fodder are limited restricting it to a subsistence production system. This paper deals with the current status of postrainy sorghum seed systems and innovative approaches to improve the quality seed availability to farmers

Delivering bioavailable micronutrients through biofortifying sorghum and seed chain innovations

Micronutrient malnutrition, particularly among women and children, is one of greatest global challenges of our times and the national Governments and international organizations are following various approaches to combat it. Biofortification –increasing the micronutrient density in edible plant parts by genetic means, is one of the cost-effective and sustainable methods to address the micronutrient malnutrition. Sorghum is one of the major staples globally and it meets more than 50% micronutrient requirements of low-income group populations in predominantly sorghum eating areas. We developed biofortified sorghums with elevated levels of grain Fe and Zn combined with higher grain yield possessing farmer-preferred grain and stover traits. The first biofortified sorghum cultivar ‘Parbhani Shakti’ was released in India in 2018, which, besides high Fe and Zn, has higher protein content and lower phytates content. An innovative ‘Seed Consortium’ was built to take this variety to the farmers in shortest possible time to benefit the farmers and consumers. Multi-stakeholder partnership was the key in this endeavour and Indian NARS, farmers, public sector seed organisations, media and Government played a key role along with ICRISAT

Stability of resistance to sorghum shoot fly, Atherigona soccata

Sorghum shoot fly, Atherigona soccata is one of the most important pests of dual-purpose sorghums during the postrainy season in India. Therefore, it is important to identify stable sources of resistance to develop cultivars with shoot fly resistance and adaptation to postrainy season. We evaluated 190 lines adapted to the postrainy season across five locations, of which 30 lines were identified with resistance to A. soccata. These lines were further evaluated for three seasons across five locations to identify lines with stable resistance to this pest across seasons and locations. Data were recorded on oviposition non-preference, deadheart incidence, recovery resistance, morphological traits (leaf glossiness, seedling vigor, plant height and days to 50% flowering), and grain yield. The sorghum genotypes CSV 22, ICSB 422, ICSB 425, ICSB 428, ICSB 432, ICSB 458, ICSB 463, IS 2312, IS 5480, IS 18662, Phule Chitra, RSV 1093, IS 18551, and RSV 1235 exhibited resistance to shoot fly damage across seasons, of which ICSB 425, ICSB 428, ICSB 432, IS 2312, IS 5480, and IS 18551 showed non-preference for oviposition. Six genotypes (ICSB 425, IS 2312, IS 18662, RSV 1090, RSV 1093, and IS 18551) also showed good recovery resistance following shoot fly damage. Principal coordinate analysis placed the maintainer lines (B-lines) with shoot fly resistance in two clusters with ICSB 422, ICSB 432, ICSB 435, ICSB 456 and ICSB 458 in one cluster and ICSB 425, ICSB 428 and ICSB 463 in the other; the open pollinated varieties/germplasm lines (restorers) were placed in a different group (CSV 22, IS 5480, IS 2312 and RSV 1093), suggesting the possibilities for developing hybrids with adaptation to the postrainy season. Based on regression coefficient and deadheart incidence, the genotypes IS 2312, ICSB 425, RSV 1090 and ICSB 428 were stable in expression of resistance to shoot fly across seasons and locations. The genotypes CSV 22 and RSV 1093 exhibited high grain yield potential and resistance to shoot fly damage, while Phule Yashoda, IS 2312, RSV 1235, and ICSV 574 were moderately resistant to shoot fly damage, but had high grain yield potential. These genotypes can be used in sorghum improvement for developing cultivars with shoot fly resistance, high grain yield and adaptation to postrainy season

Identification of sorghum genotypes with resistance to the sugarcane aphid Melanaphis sacchari under natural and artificial infestation

Sugarcane aphid, Melanaphis sacchari is an endemic pest of sorghum during postrainy season, and there is a need to develop cultivars with resistance to this pest. Evaluation of a diverse array of sorghum genotypes under natural and artificial infestation resulted in identification of seven lines (ICSB 215, ICSB 323, ICSB 724, ICSR 165, ICSV 12001, ICSV 12004 and IS 40615) with moderate levels of resistance to aphid damage. Under artificial infestation, 10 lines suffered 30 q/ha). In another experiment, ICSB 215, ICSB 695, ICSR 161, Line 61510, ICSV 12004, Parbhani Moti and IS 40618 exhibited high grain yield potential (>25 q/ha) and exhibited <50% variation in grain yield as compared to more than 80% in the susceptible check, in CK 60 B. The genotypes RSV 1211, RS 29, RSV 1338, EC 8-2, PU 10-1, IS 40617 and ICSB 695 though showed a susceptible reaction to aphid damage, but suffered relatively low loss in grain yield, suggesting that these lines have tolerance to aphid damage. Principal coordinate analysis suggested that the genotypes with aphid resistance are quite diverse and can be used to breed for aphid resistance and high grain yield potential and also in breeding for aphid resistance in sorghum with adaptation to the postrainy season

Secure kNN Query Processing in Entrusted Cloud Environments

Now days a Wireless devices which having geopositioning facility like GPS enable users to give information about their current location. Users are interested in querying in their physical location like restaurants, college, home, etc. Such data may be important due to their information. Furthermore, storing such relevant information regularly to the users tedious task, so the author of such information will make the data access only to paying users. The users are send their proper location as the query parameter, and wish to accept as result the nearest position, i.e., nearest-neighbors (NNs). But actual data owners do not have the technical knowledge to support processed query on a large data, so they outsource information storage and querying to a main dataset. Many such cloud providers exist offer powerful storage and computational structures at less cost. However, such a dataset providers are not completely trusted, and typically behave in a causal fashion. Specifically they use the some rules to answer queries perfectly, but they also collect the locations of the users and the subscribers for other uses. Giving this information of locations can lead to security breaches and financial losses to the data provider, for whom the dataset is an important source of revenue. The importance of user locations leads to privacy and may refer subscribers from using the service altogether. In this paper, we propose a set of ideas that allow NN queries in an unsecured outsourced structure, while at the same time provide security to both the location and querying users’ positions. Our ideas focus on only secure order-preserving encryption method which is known to-date. We also provide performance measurements to reduce the processing cost inherent to processing on secured data, and we consider the problem of incrementally updating these datasets. We present an extensive performance measurement of our ideas to illustrate their use in practice. Keywords- location privacy, spatial databases, database outsourcing, mutable order preserving encoding