Whatever happened to jatropha, and all those other wonder feedstocks?

Biomass sorghum

In January, we reported that a team of researchers led by faculty at the University of Georgia have received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to find new ways of combating Johnsongrass, one of the most widespread and troublesome agricultural weeds in the world.

Native to the Mediterranean region, Johnsongrass has spread across every continent except Antarctica. It was introduced to the U.S. in the 1800s as a forage crop, but it quickly spread into surrounding farmland and natural environments, where it continues to cause millions of dollars in lost agricultural revenue each year, according to the USDA.

But the researchers also hope that learning more about the fundamental structures that give Johnsongrass its unusual resilience will pave the way for new genetic tools to improve useful plants, such as sorghum, a close relative of Johnsongrass that is grown widely for food, animal fodder and as a source of biofuel.

And last December, we relayed the news that the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center announced that it will be part of a major collaborative research project to improve sorghum’s productivity under resource-limited conditions. The research should lead to strategies to increase plant biomass as well as more water use- and nutrient-efficient sorghum crop systems. The five- year $13.5M project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and will be led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Using a systems approach researchers will investigate sorghum genetics as well as the soil microbes that interact with plants. The work takes advantage of advances in marker-assisted breeding, metagenomics and computational genomic analysis. Geneticists will search for and study sorghum varieties that use water and nitrogen more efficiently under limited water or nitrogen conditions. At the same time, microbiologists will identify and characterize soil microbes that interact with and benefit sorghum, such as by enhancing nutrient uptake, water-use efficiency and disease protection.

Last September, Aemetis announced the harvesting of 12- to 15- foot tall biomass sorghum grown in Central California that was produced using proprietary Nexsteppe seed genetics. Biomass Sorghum is a feedstock for low carbon advanced biofuels. The 20 acre demonstration crop of biomass sorghum was planted, grown, and harvested by Aemetis in approximately 90 days, validating the potential use of biomass crops for the production of lower-carbon, advanced biofuels or as a rotational crop in California. The water supply for the biomass sorghum crop was lower-quality pump water containing salts that typically damage crops.  The project was located in the western San Joaquin Valley which has received a low water allocation from state and federal sources for the past several years.

In addition to the biomass sorghum demonstration, Aemetis is also a participant in the California In-State Sorghum program (CISS) through a $3 million grant awarded by the California Energy Commission.  The CISS program combines research and market development to support the in-state growth of grain sorghum as a reliable low-carbon feedstock for California’s ethanol producers.  The CISS program has just completed the first harvest of grain sorghum at the CSU Fresno International Center for Water Technology.