Bioenergy research. False-colour infrared image of part of a sweet sorghum plant. It has been obtained in order to assess how the plant reacts to various watering conditions. It is part of a project aimed at creating more resistant varieties of sweet sorghum 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, Sorghum vulgar, is the most extensively cultivated crop in the world and the fourth most important cereal. It is an annual plant characterised by an high photosynthetic efficiency. The project is funded by the Commission of the European Communities.