Abstract: An apparatus and process for separating the pith from the bast of sweet sorghum is disclosed. Cut and headed stalks of the plant are arranged as a mat of the required width on a conveyor and are forcibly advanced endwise into a rotating flail having a multiplicity of dull beating or striking elements which catch the advancing stalks against a stationary bar. The output of the process is a hail of small discrete particles of wet sugar-laden pith used in the production of fuel alcohol and elongated strings of fibre which had been the organized structural backbone of the plant. The quite differently sized and shaped products are separated by vibrating screens or elutriation in an air stream.