Switchgrass as A Biofuel

Switchgrass as A Biofuel

Lorrie Boyer
Lorrie Boyer
Reporter
Dr. Marty Schmer a research agronomist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Lincoln, Nebraska and says that switchgrass is a warm-season grass found mainly in North America. He says it has a deeper root structure and as a stable high yielding grass. It is currently used primarily for Conservation Reserve Program and grazing purposes. He says switchgrass is a viable biofuel source

for one is a perennial system.

“So you know, as a producer, you can just you would just get it established, and then the maintenance is very minimal. Usually, it does a good job of maintaining as limited need for weed control, post establishment nitrogen fertilizer is acquired annually, but it's not a lot. And then you essentially have, you know, a couple of harvests. We do have one cut harvest system is that we're proposing generally after a killing frost. So you know, in terms of time management after it's established, you essentially probably have a fertilization and then harvesting.

Dr. Schmer adds that there are environmental benefits as well to raising switchgrass.

“It does require a lot of nitrogen so you can stabilize our soils, we've got a lot of work on trying to determine how much carbon switchgrass is able to accrual in the soil profile, and our evidence shows that it does a really good job.”

As for harvesting it, he says that is treated like a high-yielding hay crop. Other important questions are working on answering through their research is storage capacity and the best way to process switchgrass into a biofuel.

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