In the largest field trial of its kind in the United States, researchers have determined that the giant perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus outperforms current biofuels sources – by a lot. Using Miscanthus as a feedstock for ethanol production in the U.S. could significantly reduce the acreage dedicated to biofuels while meeting government biofuels production goals, the researchers report.
The new findings, from researchers at the University of Illinois, appear this month in the journal Global Change Biology.
Using corn or switchgrass to produce enough ethanol to offset 20 percent of gasoline use – a current White House goal – would take 25 percent of current U.S. cropland out of food production, the researchers report. Getting the same amount of ethanol from Miscanthus would require only 9.3 percent of current agricultural acreage. (To view an audio slideshow about Miscanthus research, please go to: http://www.publicaffairs.illinois.edu/slideshows/Miscanthus_Yield/index.html.)
What we've found with Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about 2 1/2 times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn," said crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, who led the study. Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Long is an affiliate of the U. of I.'s Institute for Genomic Biology. He also is the editor of Global Change Biology.
In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.
"It wasn't that we didn't know how to grow switchgrass because the yields we obtained were actually equal to the best yields that had been obtained elsewhere with switchgrass," he said. Corn yields in Illinois are also among the best in the nation.
"One reason why Miscanthus yields more biomass than corn is that it produces green leaves about six weeks earlier in the growing season," Long said. Miscanthus also stays green until late October in Illinois, while corn leaves wither at the end of August, he said.
Here's a bit on Miscanthus giganteus. Where is it native to? Answer: Japan.
1 comment:
I've been hearing more and more about Miscanthus as a biofuel crop, since EVERYONE was talking about it at the recent agricultural show I attended. I have a clump of it in my garden courtesy of a pal who'd divided his. It grows so quickly! Mine is in a pot (naturally) and since the end of April has shot up to over 6ft tall. Much more tonnage per hectare than wheat.
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