Switchgrass research fields sprout
Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/229578/
BOONEVILLE — Research involving one of Arkansas’ oldest native tallgrasses is spreading across the state.
Switchgrass test plots have been established from Gentry in Benton County to Monticello in Drew County, as agronomists study how many tons per acre farmers could expect to harvest for the production of biomass to make cellulosic biofuels.
Researchers at the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service have been studying switchgrass longer than anyone else in Arkansas, said Randy King, manager of the agency’s Plant Materials Center south of Booneville in Logan County.
In 1997, the center began evaluating the yields of various Panicum virgatum varieties for biofuel production, King said. Such well-known varieties as Alamo, Cave-in-Rock and Kanlow have been tested, along with experimental breeding lines from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, he said.
“We write recipes for people,” telling them when to plant, where to plant and how many seeds to use per acre, King explained. “We want to be the authority for landowners who want to grow biomass.”
The yields from 12 40-footby-40-foot blocks of Alamo and Cave-in-Rock are being monitored, King said. Half of the plots were fertilized with chicken litter and half with commercial fertilizer, while half of the plots are irrigated and half are not.
Harvesting on six of the plots began last week, with additional harvests planned every 45 days, King said. The remaining plots will be harvested just once, after the year’s first killing frost, he said.
Cellulosic biofuels — fuels manufactured from organic materials such as logging debris, agricultural residues and dedicated energy crops like switchgrass — are expected to be one of the fastest-growing renewable fuels, due in part to mandates included in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The new “renewable fuels standard” calls for 100 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels to be sold annually in the United States by 2010, increasing to 16 billion gallons by 2022.
Cellulosic fuels are considered preferable to both corn-grain ethanol and biodiesel, made from either vegetable oils or animal fats, because adequate supplies of biomass exist throughout the country. Cellulosic feedstock production also is more environmentally friendly given its strongly positive “net energy balance,” or how much energy is produced compared with how much energy is consumed. Switchgrass is favored because of its low production cost and its ability to prosper on marginal soils.
The major stumbling block has been building the first commercially viable plant to convert cellulosic biomass into cellulosic biofuel. Potlatch Corp., which had considered building a biorefinery at the company’s Cypress Bend pulp and paperboard mill in Desha County, later rejected the project. In February 2007, the U. S. Department of Energy awarded $ 385 million to six biorefinery projects designed to produce more than 130 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel. None has begun production.
Chuck West, a forage agronomist at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, began studying switchgrass last year, establishing research plots of the perennial, warm-season grass at the university’s agricultural experiment station near Pine Tree in St. Francis County and on a private farm near Gentry in Benton County.
The yield of Alamo switchgrass is being compared with two experimental varieties from Oklahoma State University and two experimental varieties from the Samuel Roberts Nobel Foundation Inc. in Ardmore, Okla., he said. West hopes to pursue the research for at least five years.
“We expect [the switchgrass ] to hit maximum yield in the third year,” West said. “I’m hoping to get six tons per acre of dry biomass,” he said.
Additional Alamo plots were planted this year in Newport and Monticello, and more are planned in Hope and Keiser, reflecting a variety of soil types and climates, West said.
“I wish we had the manpower and the money to do more,” such as studying the best methods for converting existing pasture to switchgrass, he said.
Conducting research close to Southwest Electric Power Co. ’s Flint Creek power plant near Gentry was especially appealing, West said, “in case SWEPCO ever shows interest in locally grown biomass to co-fire with coal.”
Arkansas’ most recent switchgrass research began earlier this year in Drew County, where The Price Cos. Inc. of Monticello is cooperating with Ceres Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif., said Dick Carmical, president of The Price Cos.
Switchgrass research of a different sort has been under way for nine years at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s Lonoke research farm.
In July 2007, UAPB signed a $ 3. 8 million contract with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers ’ Memphis District to expand its production of native-grass seeds and seedlings for planting along irrigation canals and on levees to prevent erosion, conserve soil and provide wildlife habitat.