Nature Conservancy to use grass for energy
June 11, 2009
Associated Press
Last update: June 11, 2009 – 7:04 AM
The Nature Conservancy will take grass from about 300 acres of native or restored prairies in Nicollet, Le Sueur, Sibley and Rice counties to a new biomass plant in Shakopee and figure out the cost of producing energy from the land.
Besides finding a new way to produce energy, a spokesman for the group says the project is a way to protect tallgrass prairies — a nearly extinct ecosystem. Christopher Anderson says Minnesota is down to less than 1 percent of the prairie land it once had.
The University of Minnesota and local soil and water districts are also helping with the project.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
#1 Please comment on this post with additional news and information that you have. This will be build our information base for 2010 action on this topic.
#2 Take Action. Understand the issue and how various tradeoffs between prairie grass vs. other forms of plant biomass for fuels affect native plants and communities. Contact your legislative representatives to find out where they stand and considering meeting with them to provide your understanding. http://www.leg.state.mn.us/
Tags: biofuel
I think it is very important that ecologists meet agronomists at the table on this prairie as biomass issue. Personally, I think that planting native prairie species for use a biomass source is great all around: great for the land, great for our water resources, and good for wildlife if harvested at good times. I emphasize planting “species”… a “poly-culture” in the current biomass literature. However, the agronomists have already planted monocolutures of switchgrass and are looking at genetic modification to increase the energy produced. Not only will this affect our wild-type strains, it has the same problems as any old crop.
Recently the switchgrass moth (Blastobasis repartella) was re-discovered in a grass seed farm, destroying a good percentage of the switchgrass “crop”. The agronomist are surprised! South Dakota State University Professor Paul Johnson said in a Biomass Magazine article “Before these recent discoveries, the mantra in the national biofuels and biomass circles was that there were no significant pests of concern and that growing native plants as crops would be environmentally benign if not beneficial. Our basic insect natural history work here at the Severin-McDaniel Insect Research Collection has shown this presumption to be false and that native prairie plants are just as vulnerable to insects as other crop. A major concern in the near future, then, becomes designing pest management programs. When you start encouraging large monocultures, it’s like there’s a Thanksgiving feast laid out for them.”
Wouldn’t having a “real” prairie be its own pest management solution? I contend that you may have less yield than souped-up swithgrass, but you won’t be spending lots of money on special seed, on fertilizer (yes, there are fertilizing switchgrass to increase yeidl), or pesticides.
I applied for this program last year and was a runner-up. I hope the organizations obtain funding to repeat it this year. I would be delighted to have my Dakota County prairie-grass fields and small restored prairie help reduce our country’s need for oil.