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Originally Posted by Aas Gutú Adéli
Was this supposed to go to Mayberry?
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Haha, i posted this thread at WR yesterday and had no idea it was also posted at MB.
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It is interesting.
I've been bitching for awhile that corn ethanol sucks and sugar ethanol rocks.
The US is screwing things up by subsidizing corn ethanol to compete with gas, but they're imposing tariff's on sugar ethanol to make it so it can't compete with corn or gas.
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I dont understand also why USA placed so much attention on corn when switchgrass could be a better option for ethanol without hurting food supply.
Panicum virgatum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Much of North America, especially the prairies of the Midwest, was once home to vast swaths of native grasses including Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), Eastern Gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides), Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and others. As settlers began spreading out across the continent, the native grasses were replaced by crops such as corn and wheat. Introduced grasses such as fescue, bluegrass, and orchardgrass [4] replaced the native grasses. Today, as [biofuel]s are becoming a mainstay in the headlines, the public is hearing about Switchgrass as an excellent prospect for providing ethanol for our cars. There are also other benefits and opportunities for switchgrass in our economy.
Switchgrass is very versatile and adaptable. It can grow and even thrive in many weather conditions, lengths of growing seasons, soil types and land conditions. Its distribution spans south of latitude 55°N from Saskatchewan to Nova Scotia and south over most of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains (Sizler, 2007) As a warm season perennial grass, most of its growth occurs from late spring through early fall and becomes dormant and unproductive during colder months. Thus, the productive season in the northern regions can be as short as three months, but up to eight months in the Gulf Coast area (Ball et al., 2002).
One of the benefits of switchgrass is through soil amendment and conservation. Switchgrass has a deep fibrous root system – nearly as deep as the plant is tall. Since it, along with other native grasses and forbs, once covered the plains of the United States that are now the Corn Belt, one could say that they still help feed the world today. Their deep fibrous roots left a very deep rich layer of organic matter in the soils; making those mollisol soils some of the most productive in the world. By returning switchgrass and other perennial prairie grasses to the agricultural scene, many marginal soils will benefit from their deep root systems through increased organic matter levels, permeability, and fertility.
