Miscanthus 2

 Yesterday I went on something between a rant and an epiphany over something I stumbled on while cruising the internet looking for some ag information. And I found something that I want to share with you farmers out there who might be planning your next rotation or scratching your head wondering what’s next.

 There’s a bit on YouTube with Energy Secretary Steven Chu standing in front of a slide. On the slide, there’s a woman holding some kind of vertical measuring device (like a super yardstick) and it looks like it’s about 12 feet tall. She’s standing next to a field of extremely high grass which looks about 12-15 feet in length. The grass is called miscanthus. Listen to Secretary Chu: “This is a photograph of a perennial grass called miscanthus…it was grown without irrigation, without fertilizer. In the Autumn, you just shave it off, you use it to convert to ethanol, the amount of ethanol in this particular plot of land outside the University of Illinois, produces 15 times more ethanol than a similar plot of land if you grew corn. And the energy inputs are far less.”

 Don’t bother to adjust your hearing aid…don’t touch that dial…you heard it right. a perrenial grass called miscanthus… grown without irrigation, without fertilizer, energy inputs are far less. Producing 15 times more ethanol than the same acreage under corn.