VIASPACE’s Giant King Grass harvest a success in UCalifornia collaboration

September 12, 2014 |

In California, Viaspace has harvested their first crop of their proprietary Giant King Grass with excellent yields. The company compared two planting methods and found that planting single nodes that each grow into individual plants yielded 38% more grass over the sugarcane approach to planting.

The research collaboration with University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Division was announced in July. Viaspace provided some funding for the research, which aimed to:

·       Compare the growth of Giant King Grass using subsurface drip irrigation with flood (furrow) irrigation
·       Compare individual node and whole stalk planting methods
·       Evaluate yields when cut every 6 months for bioenergy applications
·       Evaluate yields when cut every 2 months for animal feed or anaerobic digestion to produce biomethane
·       Evaluate growth of Giant King Grass in a very hot dry climate

Last month, Viaspace announced a partnership with Agricorp to complete a 12MW power plant in Nicaragua using their grass as feedstock. The plant will be the company’s flagship project, run on their proprietary grass crop, but Viaspace expects to begin three or four more projects per year in the country. The company is also looking at tropical Africa, Myanmar, China, Thailand, and the Philippines for expansion.

Viaspace is growing Giant King Grass in 11 locations in 8 countries on 4 continents, and it has been extensively tested by third party laboratories for electricity production, biogas, biofuel, pellet and animal feed applications.

More on the story.

Category: Fuels

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