permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

ARS News is excellent.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Sunn Hemp Shows Promise as Biofuel Source
Date:   Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:07:41 -0500
From:   ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Reply-To:       ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
To:     ARS News subscriber <lflj@bellsouth.net>

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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
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*Read the magazine story
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan12/crop0112.htm> to find out
more.*

Photo: Sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea). Link to photo information
The tropical legume sunn hemp (/Crotalaria juncea/) could be a good
biofuel crop for farmers in the southeast, according to new ARS
research. /Photo courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr./


For further reading

  * ARS researching camelina as a new biofuel crop
    <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/100413.htm>
  * Byproducts of biofuels could be economically viable for growers
    <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090410.htm>
  * The field narrows for cover crops in biofuel production
    <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090923.htm>


    Sunn Hemp Shows Promise as Biofuel Source

By Ann Perry </is/contacts.htm#Ann>
January 3, 2012

Work by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
<http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome> (USDA) suggests that
farmers in the Southeast could use the tropical legume sunn hemp
(/Crotalaria juncea/) in their crop rotations by harvesting the
fast-growing annual for biofuel. The study, which was conducted by
Agricultural Research Service <http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/main.htm>
(ARS) scientists in Florence, S.C., supports the USDA priority of
finding new sources of bioenergy. ARS is USDA's chief intramural
scientific research agency.

ARS agricultural engineer Keri Cantrell
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=39521>,
agronomist Philip Bauer
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=335>, and
environmental engineer Kyoung Ro
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=35447> all
work at the ARS Coastal Plains Soil, Water, and Plant Research Cente
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=66-57-00-00>r in
Florence. They compared the energy content of sunn hemp with cowpea
(/Vigna unguiculata/), another common regional summer cover crop, in
2004 and 2006.

Both crops were grown in experimental plots near Florence and were
harvested on the same day three times in each study year. The last
harvest for both years was conducted right after the first killing
freeze of the season. The scientists measured potential energy
production of both feedstocks via direct combustion. This provided the
feedstocks' higher heating value (HHV), which indicates how much energy
is released via combustion.

In 2004, when there was ample rainfall, the resulting sunn hemp biomass
yield totaled more than 4.5 tons per acre. This is equivalent to 82.4
gigajoules of energy per acre, close to the energy contained in 620
gallons of gasoline and well in the ballpark of other bioenergy crops,
which have yields of anywhere from 30 to 150 gigajoules per acre.

The HHV for sunn hemp biomass exceeded the HHV for switchgrass,
bermudagrass, reed canarygrass and alfalfa. Although reduced rainfall
resulted in lower hemp biomass yields in 2006, sunn hemp's HHV for both
study years was 4 to 5 percent greater than the HHV of cowpeas.

Results from the study were published in 2010 in /Biomass and Bioenergy/
<http://www.journals.elsevier.com/biomass-and-bioenergy/>.

Read more <http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan12/crop0112.htm>
about this research in the January 2012 issue of /Agricultural Research/
magazine.

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