08/01/07 Fuel for Peanuts

Fuel for Peanuts. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Back in the 50's and 60's we could fill our gas tanks for peanuts. Now, you might be filling your tank WITH peanuts! At least in the South East part of the U.S. the peanut is being looked at as a viable alternative to corn and soybeans for the production of biodiesel. Dr. Wilson Faircloth is a scientist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Dawson, GA. FAIRCLOTH: Our soybean potential is just not very good. We can grow beans but our yield potential is 30, 40, maybe 50 bushels if all the stars line up just right but the one thing we can grow is peanuts. And when you consider that peanuts are 50% oil and you can consider that we can make one to two ton yields fairly regularly, you can quite easily see for the Southeast that's going to be our best oil feedstock to make biodiesel. The peanut in question is not necessarily the variety you are used to snacking on according to Dr. Faircloth. FAIRCLOTH: For the last 50 years we have been breading peanuts with the sole purpose in mind of producing a good tasting, pretty peanut that is attractive, that you would want to eat that tastes good. But now if all we want to do is crush it for oil, we don't care about that. We just want a peanut that will have good oil characteristics and be a high yielder. That gives us an opportunity to go back and mine a whole lot of germplasm that's been cast aside over the years because it didn't meet the stringent specs of Snicker® Bars or whatever. Soybeans produce approximately 50 gallons of fuel per acre, while traditionally grown peanuts can produce approximately 120 to 130 gallons of biodiesel fuel per acre. Dr. Faircloth says a lot of other producers are looking at the peanut as a viable alternative fuel crop. FAIRCLOTH: The idea of mass production of peanuts is out there but first we've got to fulfill our domestic, edible responsibilities, then we can look further into seeing how this crop can be utilized because as you say it has the potential on a per acre basis to really out run some of the other oil seeds. Especially in the Southeast. Peanuts need a long growing season to reach full maturity and Dr. Faircloth says the Southeast is ideally suited for that but other areas have been working at producing crops. FAIRCLOTH: The problem in most other areas of the United States is that you don't have enough heat units and a long enough growing season to really, fully mature a crop. You can grow peanuts but they may not really obtain that good flavor and oil content that's available in the Southeast. The western areas of Texas and New Mexico actually they grow a good peanut because they have a long growing season and they have a very dry climate. They just have to water those peanuts a lot. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.