07/02/07 Handling Future Fuels

Handling Future Fuels. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. A great deal of attention has been focused recently on growing various grasses that can be used to produce some of the same if not better results than corn does in the manufacture of biofuels. One of those varieties is switchgrass and according to Steve Fransen, Associate Crops Scientist for WSU the tall grass research is doing well. FRANSEN: I'm about 6 foot tall so they will be about my head height when we harvest them and we usually harvest twice a year. There are other ones that are shorter growing. These are also potential biofuel warm season grasses, there yield potential is going to be less because simply they're a lot shorter. The research is on grasses that aren't native to the area and require plenty of irrigation here in the northwest that they don't need in the Midwest. Yield potential on the grass is impressive and Fransen says not a lot needs to be done differently from typical hay crops. FRANSEN: We've got a tremendous group of hay growers in the Columbia Basin region who know how to grow hay and you're going to grow and use the same exact equipment in making switchgrass biofuel feedstock material as you would alfalfa, hay or high quality grass hay. Same sort of harvesting equipment, same baling equipment, same everything. The only differences that Fransen says you have to adapt to are in the actual harvesting. FRANSEN: Harvesting low or close to the soil is an absolute no-no. You don't do that. We harvest and leave a 5-inch stubble base and so that's going to real critical in learning how to grow this particular grass. This is just one of the nuances that this grass has that you just got to learn and put into your operational plans. If you have an interest in trying switchgrass, Fransen says&ask questions. FRANSEN: I hope that the folks will be skeptical and ask really good, hard questions before they jump in with both feet. I think that's the most critical thing and that's the reason we've been careful in what we tell folks. We're learning like everybody else how to grow this crop here and we grow it very differently than they would in the Midwest or in the Southeastern part of the United States. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.