by Roy Robertson (Southeast Farm Press) • Steve Kresovich is part of a team of USC researchers looking for crops that can be adapted to less productive and often under-utilized South Carolina soils.
• The end goal, Kresovich says, is to develop biomass crops that can be used to produce energy and that can be grown profitably by South Carolina farmers.
…Clemson Agronomist Jim Frederick has tested switchgrass for several years at the PeeDee research center.
The University of South Carolina research team is working in cooperation with Frederick and other Clemson researchers to find fast growing, high volume biomass crops that can be adapted for production in South Carolina.
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Energy cane is a highly productive crop that meets the criteria of growing well on less than optimum soil, does well in drought, heat, and cold tolerance — and overall is productive over a wide range of soil and climate conditions in South Carolina.
Kresovich says that energy cane is a cross between commercially grown sugarcane produced in Florida and Louisiana wild relatives of sugarcane.
While commercially grown sugarcane probably wouldn’t do well as far north as South Carolina, there are many relatives of sugarcane grown all over the world and in climates similar to those found in the Southeast, Kresovich says.
…The U.S. Department of Energy contends delivered cost of biomass to conversion facilities should be in the range of $30 to $40 per dry ton, to be economically feasible for use as biofuels.
However, the production costs for dedicated energy crops range from $50 to $100-plus per dry ton. The key to reducing delivered cost will be high-tonnage crops and highly efficient production systems, but delivering large amounts of biomass (hundreds of millions of tons per year) at rates lower than $50 per dry ton will be difficult, the USC researcher predicts. READ MORE
