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Energy Crops

dbltree

dbltree

Super Moderator
A new bill being put forth next week would encourage landowners to grow "energy crops" such as switchgrass and trees (among many others)and be paid to do so long before a cellulosic ethanol plant is ready to take their harvest.

Who knows if it will go anywhere and nothing is ever perfect without drawbacks etc.

I do like the idea in principle as it's not a replacement for CRP but rather to encourage farmers to plant cellulosic feedstocks now so that they will be ready when those type of ethanol plants are built.

All land is not suited for CRP so if a "habitat minded" landowner would rather have some of their land in switchgrass or fast growing trees rather then the usual corn/soybean crops...this might be an option.

Bill urges farmers to grow energy crops

If you read thru it you'll notice things like not cutting it lower then 10" and no cutting during nesting periods, so there are some positive thoughts in this.

One might grow these "crops" for years and be paid to do while never actually harvesting anything.

It can't be compared to the positive qualities of CRP cover but comapred to "wall to wall" corn...with no nesting cover what so ever...it is food for thought.
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this could be cool. using not only corn but Iowa's other resources as fuels. and heck, we have alot of switchgrass around anyway. why not use it to make fuel also??? i think its a good idea!
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Speaking of oil seeds- anyone ever heard of camelina? There was an article about it in the Lexington paper this weekend- I lost the paper but found this link from Purdue. Did not see anything about wildlife use but the article was comparing it to rape and canola.
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Is there something I didn't hear about on the Vistive trait?

Because the "no trans fat" fad has only just started, low lin beans aren't going anywhere.

Beans overall may decrease but they won't go away, Brazil can't keep up with world demand all by herself.
 
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I think there was a patent infringement.

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With a massive lawsuit following. So far I am really not impressed with the Vistive beans, way behind the other beans and they were planted the same day.
 
I have enrolled about 500 acres of land in the biomass fuel program some is my own and some is on farms that I manage.The program is administered through EQUIP and administered through the NRCS. The acres do not have to have crop history we did have to provide at least 20 acres on each farm. The program has 50% cost share and a sign up bonus if you want to leave it as cover that is were the programs stops if we harvest the biomass then there is an additional per acre payment plus the product of the hay.
 
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The acres do not have to have crop history


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What type of land would be enrolled in this program? Old pasture? Timber?

What worries me is that when trees start becoming a viable source of ethanol, it may then be profitable for folks to start clear cutting the few timber acres left. That would also allow them to then crop the land which ethanol paid to clear. Am I just paranoid or what?
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