Bioenergy research. A collection of seeds of different varieties of sweet sorghum, Sorghum vulgar. These have been cultivated to test the performance of sweet sorghum plants for bioenergy purposes. These include the manufacture of ethanol from the sugars extracted from the plants and the production of environmentally friendly biofuels such as gas and oil from the bagasse (dry pulp). Sweet sorghum is the most extensively cultivated crop in the world and the fourth most important cereal. It is an annual plant characterised by a high photosynthetic efficiency and a high water and nitrogen use efficiency. The project is funded by the Commission of European Communities.