Texas-Sized Sorghum: New Solution for Fuel?

[jpak]

http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/SOIL/Apr3007a.htm

COLLEGE STATION - Big Sorghum is moving up on Big Oil in Texas. Ten-foot tall stalks of bioenergy sorghum, planted on thousands of acres, could march across Texas just as oil derricks once did, replacing black gold with green gold.

Texas A&M Agriculture will host U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Gale Buchanan and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples on Tuesday, May 1, for a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the most promising biomass research efforts within The Texas A&M University System.

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In addition to growing corn for biofuels, Texas can capitalize on decades of sorghum research at the Experiment Station, Murano said. The giant sorghum varieties being grown in experimental plots today are drought-tolerant, can be grown across the state, and offer high yields in ethanol.

"Based upon our analyses, we find it's efficient to take something like our new sorghum varieties or sugar cane that produces large volumes of biomass, rather than producing grain and then converting grain-starch to ethanol," Murano said.

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[BonnieJW]

1. Scientists should develop

strains of corn that can grow in the desert. If we could put crops like that into the desert along with solar panels, it would be an enormous source of green energy.

[AlecBGreen]

2. that would be tough

corn is a thirsty plant, although come to think of it, it DID originate in Mexico ... hmm .... :shrug: