Sweet sorghum for ethanol industry for the Piedmont

Approximately one-third of the idle cropland in the Piedmont counties of the five southern states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, would have to be planted in sweet sorghum with an average yield of 40 t/ha to produce a volume of ethanol equal tro the volume of petroleum fuel purchased by farmers in the Piedmont counties (518 million L/year), assuming that 65% of the fermentable sugar is extracted. If the by-products are ensiled for cattle feed, it is sufficient to feed 1.5 times the entire cattle population of the Piedmont of Virginia, and 3.0, 0.78, 1.25 and 1.16 times the Piedmont cattle population in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, respectively.