Thousand Oaks, California
May 20, 2009
Energy crop company
Ceres, Inc. announced today
that switchgrass can produce substantially more biomass than
previously reported and that average yields often used by
academics and policymakers to forecast bioenergy economics and
environmental benefits may, in fact, be far too conservative.
The company reported that yield results from its nation-wide
network of field trials showed that average biomass yields among
switchgrass seed varieties tested last season were as much as
50% more than the government’s projected yields for 2022.
Proprietary varieties sold under the company’s Blade Energy
Crops brand were consistently the highest yielding varieties
across multiple trial locations, with average yields reaching
nearly 10 tons.
The highest yield was reported in California, where a Ceres
experimental variety produced 19 tons per acre. Ceres
switchgrass product manager Cory Christensen, Ph.D., said that
“this result demonstrates the genetic potential of switchgrass
grown under favorable conditions.” He predicted that “through
trait development, better genetics and improved crop management
practices, we can continue to increase average yields for many
years to come.”
Christensen noted that higher yields per acre have a significant
impact on farm and conversion economics, and can dramatically
reduce harvest and delivery costs per ton, collectively the
single largest expense in providing raw materials to bioenergy
facilities. Similar benefits would be seen in calculating the
greenhouse gas savings of displacing petroleum with biofuels
made from dedicated energy crops.
Based on the Ceres results, policymakers will likely need to
re-think their assumptions regarding energy crop production. A
number of studies assume yields as low as two to four tons per
acre for switchgrass, and rather than incorporating yield
increases from breeding, many of these studies hold yields
virtually flat into the future. More recently, a highly regarded
biofuel study co-authored by Sandia National Labs used a
conservative six tons of biomass per acre for energy grasses —
similar to estimates by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA).
Ceres chief executive Richard Hamilton says that Ceres needs
additional data before formally proposing new benchmarks, but
said the “writing was on the wall.” Adding, “these results are
not surprising when you look at the impact that utilizing modern
biology has had on food crop yields, like corn, which has seen a
five-fold increase since the first hybrids were introduced.”
Even using the government’s conservative projections,
switchgrass sequesters more carbon than any other raw material
evaluated by EPA, which released its official analysis on
advanced biofuels earlier this month.
“Energy crops like switchgrass are the only scalable,
carbon-negative sources for transportation fuels in the EPA
analysis,” Hamilton said, meaning that more carbon is
sequestered from the atmosphere than is released in the
lifecycle of producing and burning the fuel. “That’s a benefit
that electric cars, hydrogen and other renewables do not
provide,” he said.
“With dedicated energy crops, increasing average on-farm yields
will mean even greater gains in reducing greenhouse gases, as
well as improved profitability for farmers and bioenergy
companies. Perennial grasses are good and clearly can be made
even better using well-proven technologies at hand today,”
Hamilton said.
According to Ceres, the switchgrass data were collected from
small-plot, replicated trials at locations across the mid and
southern latitudes of the United States on both dry and
irrigated land in 2008. Like other crops, biomass yields can
vary among specific locations and year-to-year.
Ceres, Inc. is a leading developer and marketer of
high-yielding energy crops that can be planted as raw materials
for cellulosic ethanol production and biopower. Its development
efforts cover switchgrass, sorghum, miscanthus, energycane and
short-rotation woody crops. The plant breeding and biotechnology
company markets its switchgrass seed and sorghum seed under its
Blade Energy Crops brand. Ceres holds one of the world’s largest
proprietary collections of fully sequenced plant genes. |
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