That came as no surprise to USDA research scientist Jim Kiniry at the Grasslands Soil and Water Research Laboratory in Temple. Kiniry has been experimenting with switchgrass as an alternative fuel source since 1993. Based on his 14 years of research and other studies, he said he believes switchgrass holds tremendous potential.
Another USDA scientist at the Grasslands lab, Rick Haney, will begin a project this fall that will look at canola oil - essentially the same canola oil you can buy at your neighborhood grocery - as a source of biodiesel fuel.
Both scientists are excited about the long–term impact their work can have not only on national energy needs but on the local agriculture economy as well.
“The potential is enormous,” Kiniry said about his work with switchgrass, much of which has been funded by the Department of Energy. “You don’t have to replant it every year and you can use the same harvest equipment that you use for hay. It can be produced on land that’s ordinarily not good ag land, or it can be planted where you might usually plant corn.”
The original 16–by–60–foot patch of Alamo switchgrass Kiniry first planted has more than doubled in size on its own. Once established, the Alamo variety spreads quickly in these climes, he said.
“Once it’s established, it’s much cheaper to produce than corn and it helps reduce soil erosion,” Kiniry said. “Getting it established is not as easy as some people say. It’s not like corn in that you plant it and it’s going to come up. But once you get it established, it’s very economical.”
Switchgrass is a perennial bunch grass that is currently used on a somewhat limited basis as forage and as ground cover to prevent erosion. Kiniry said it makes a good forage grass if its used before it gets too stemmy. It’s used for that purpose around Stephenville where waste from large dairy farms is used as fertilizer.
The switchgrass Kiniry and his team grow at Blackland has been starved of nitrogen for the past three years. He plans to add dairy waste this fall to see how much the compost increases yields.
Even as government mandates to increase the use of alternative fuels in coming years are signed into law, debate about the effectiveness of some of the new alternative fuels, such as corn–based ethanol and switchgrass, swirl about in academic circles.
A study at the University of Berkeley reports that biofuels require more fossil fuel to produce maize-based ethanol than the ethanol itself (things like the plowing of the corn as well as the transporting of it to be processed involve the use of fossil fuels). Other studies from Auburn University and Dartmouth University show just the opposite is true - that the energy created by biofuels outweighs its fossil fuel demands.
Both Kiniry and Haney come down on the side of the Auburn and Dartmouth studies.
“The Berkeley study didn’t take a lot of things into account,” Kiniry said. “The maize–based ethanol is an important first step in reducing our reliance on imported oil, and it does produce more oil than what it is used in its production. That’s only going to increase as technologies develop.”
“Farmer are going to grow the corn anyway,” Haney said. “Some of the studies don’t take that into account.”
While corn is the crop of choice for most current biofuels, Kiniry believes switchgrass will be the crop of choice for ethanol when technologies that digest cellulostic ethanol from switchgrass are perfected.
“It’s coming really fast,” he said.
Farmers, he believes, will adjust to changes in the marketplace.
“If farmers find they can produce switchgrass cheaper than they can produce corn, a lot of them will start growing switchgrass. It’s always going to be market driven.”
Switchgrass uses a lot of nitrogen, which turns out to be double–edged sword. In the area around Stephenville, where switchgrass is grown as forage, it sucks up a lot of nutrients from the soil that otherwise might run off into the Bosque and Leon Rivers. The fertilizer to replenish the soil comes in the form of compost from large dairy farms in the area.
Farmers without access to large amounts of compost might find the cost of fertilizing the fields too high, given the rising prices for fertilizer, Kiniry said.
Haney plans to plant a crop of canola this fall, buy a screwpress and design a system with tanks and mixers that converts the oil into high–grade biodiesel fuel. Canola oil right off the grocery shelves is already being used in some countries as automobile fuel.
“They buy it from the store and pour it directly into their tanks,” Haney said. “That’s not recommended.”
Right now Haney is harvesting organic wheat to compare yields to yields of wheat grown using chemicals to determine if it’s more financially expedient
“That’s the way wheat used to be grown, before there was fertilizer,” he said. “All we’re doing is going back to the way it used to be done to see if it’s cheaper or more effective, especially with the high cost of fertilizer.”
He’s looking forward to his work with canola this fall. “We’re looking for some things that the local farmer can do to help his economic situation,” he said. “This is one of those things.”
ccoppedge@temple-telegram.com
