Several Indian jatropha project yields are 80 percent below forecast except where fertilizer is applied; elevated plant mortality; cost almost 3X conventional diesel
In India, a model farm in the Vyasa district of India’s northern state of Gujarat is reporting yields of only 200 grams of jatropha oil per plant, down from an expected 1 kilogram yield, and Aditya Aromatics is reporting that cultivation costs for jatropha oil are $7.67 per gallon compared to a conventional diesel cost of $2.60 per gallon.
The two groups say that their tests have been on poor soils with no fertilizer; on a plot of land where fertilizer has been applied by the Vyasa model farm, the plants are yielding 4 kilos per plant.
Meanwhile, D1 Oils in India, which had set a goal of 2.7 tonnes of oil per acre from its new E1 seed and 1.7 tonnes from “normal seed”, or 2-3.5 kilos per plant, is reporting that it is at 500 grams per plant and is aiming for 1 kilo per plant in two more years. They also confirmed that plant mortality is elevated.
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Joelle Brink | May 13, 2009 | Reply
The main issue in most of these projects is not jatropha but factory farming. As with sweet sorghum, most of the early work with jatropha was conducted on the village economic development model. The oil was used by villagers for lighting, cooking. as diesel fuel in tractors and generator sets, and the glycerin was used for making soap and candles for sale. The plants were well cultivated and pruned, and even irrigated, because they were necessary for daily life and for income from soap and candle making.
On even the best plantations conditions are very different. Pradip Bhar of D1 Williamson-Magor has spoken of the fact that his workers had never seen jatropha before and did not want to touch it because they heard it was poisonous. In one case a child got into the demonstration garden, ate a seed–the lethal part of the plant–and died. Given the large number of seedlings to be planted and plants to be cultivated and pruned by hand, this had a serious impact on his program. Once planting was finished and his workers paid, they lost interest in continuing with the project.
The third issue I’ve seen with jatropha plantations is patent-hunting. Every corporate grower seemed to have a plant genetics lab, which was really where the big financial returns were expected. Because patentability was an issue, they often overlooked good cultivars from public university programs, even those from jatropha science leader Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU). Often they found out the hard way that there are no shortcuts. One corporate grower, having reached a dead end in the lab, bribed a university plant scientist to smuggle out a high-yielding hybrid. After delivering the plant the researcher disappeared for two weeks, finally resurfacing as a highly paid executive on the staff of the corporate grower.
Two very good sources for successful jatropha growing are TNAU’s program http://www.tnau.ac.in/tech/swc/evjatropha.pdf , and soil and plant scientist Richard Ogoshi at the University of Hawaii Manoa http://www.tnau.ac.in/tech/swc/evjatropha.pdf. Ogoshi has visited TNAU and other successful programs in Asia and Europe and has grown jatropha in both irrigated and unirrigated conditions in Hawii. He is currently working on soil remediation to enable jatropha cultivtion on exhausted Dole plantations.