biofuel crop News
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Biofuel crops `can invade tropical ecosystems`
Biofuel crops are more likely than other plants to become invasive in tropical and subtropical ecosystems worldwide, scientists have found. They say that a weed risk assessment (WRA) — which examines a plant's biology, geographic origin, known pest status and behaviour — can be used to predict whether a species of biofuel crop will become invasive, enabling countries to avoid environmental and ...
By SciDev.Net
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Easing the soil’s temperature
Soil characteristics like organic matter content and moisture play a vital role in helping plants flourish. It turns out that soil temperature is just as important. Every plant needs a certain soil temperature to thrive. If the temperature changes too quickly, plants won’t do well. Their seeds won’t germinate or their roots will die. “Most plants are sensitive to extreme ...
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Quality compost’s business potential tested on roofs
Quality recycled compost will be used for green roofs and rain gardens, among other innovative projects, in trials to explore the material’s technical and commercial potential. The trials, organised by the Waste & Resources Action Programme, will also continue research into regenerating brownfield sites to grow biofuel crops, which it began in 2007. Projects will start this year across the ...
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ARPA-E Provides $300,000 In Third Round Funding For PETROSS Project
In May of 2016, the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) awarded the University of Illinois and the University of Florida $300,000 to continue researching ultra-productive biofuel crops. The research project is called Plants Engineered To Replace Oil in Sugarcane and Sweet Sorghum (PETROSS), and this is the third round of funding that it will receive from ARPA-E. PETROSS is ...
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Reality check for `miracle` biofuel crop
The hardy jatropha tree as a biofuel source may not be the panacea for smallholders that some have claimed, say Miyuki Iiyama and James Onchieku. It sounds too good to be true: a biofuel crop that grows on semi-arid lands and degraded soils, replaces fossil fuels in developing countries and brings huge injections of cash to poor smallholders. That is what some are claiming for Jatropha curcas, ...
By SciDev.Net
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Perennial grass crops - a carbon neutral biofuel?
Perennial crops, such as grasses, are attracting increasing interest as potential biofuel crops. Perennial crops have significant advantages over many annual crops because they require less energy input during growth than annual crops which not only need to be planted each year, but typically require more fertiliser, herbicide and pesticide input. Research on farm-scale cultivation of the ...
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Biofuel and crop research grows by AUS$1.6m
The research team will identify the genes associated with key plant properties responsible for growth, flowering and grain-filling in grasses. They will use the advanced robotic and imaging plant research tools of the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) to conduct the research. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has recognised the unique, world-class capability that the APPF affords by ...
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When biofuels and biosecurity meet
“New agricultural non-food crops, especially those developed to meet the growing demand for biofuels and other renewable industrial needs in the 21st Century, will have to meet triple bottom line – people, planet, profit – criteria,” says CSIRO Entomology’s Dr Andy Sheppard. “Sustainable management of pests in new crops and minimisation of any invasive threats these crops pose to the environment ...
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Food prices fall in November amid robust global inventories
Major food commodity prices fell in November, reversing about half their rise in the previous month, as the cost of internationally-traded staples, except for sugar, fell across the board. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 156.7 points in November, down 1.6 percent from its revised October average, and 18 percent below its value a year earlier. The FAO Cereal Price Index fell 2.3 percent, with ...
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Improving wheat yields for global food security
With the world’s population set to reach 8.9 billion by 2050, CSIRO scientists are hunting down and exploiting a number of wheat’s key genetic traits in a bid to substantially boost its grain yield. The rate of wheat-yield improvement achievable through conventional plant breeding and genetic engineering alone is not fast enough to compete with a rapidly growing global ...
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Desert plantations could help capture carbon
Planting trees in coastal deserts could capture carbon dioxide, reduce harsh desert temperatures, boost rainfall, revitalise soils and produce cheap biofuels, say scientists. Large-scale plantations of the hardy jatropha tree, Jatropha curcas, could help sequester carbon dioxide through a process known as 'carbon farming', according to a study based on data gathered in Mexico and Oman that was ...
By SciDev.Net
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Lack of science means jatropha biofuel `could fail poor`
Mass planting of jatropha as a biofuel crop could benefit poor areas as well as combating global warming, but only if a number of scientific and production issues are properly addressed, a review has warned. Growing jatropha for biofuel on degraded land unsuitable for food and cash crops could help improve the earnings of small farmers and counter poverty, reports the Food and Agriculture ...
By SciDev.Net
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Seaweed study boosts prospects for marine biofuels
Seaweed biofuel farms have come a step closer to reality with an improvement in the way seaweed sugars can be converted to ethanol. Dried seaweed can be fermented to produce ethanol but breaking down galactose, the dominant sugar in seaweed, is a slow process. Now, researchers have modified the expression of three genes of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is used in the fermenation ...
By SciDev.Net
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Is biomass production profitable?
Cellulosic ethanol has emerged as a leading candidate biofuel that could contribute significantly to meeting U.S. liquid fuel demand while reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. Feasibility of large-scale cellulosic ethanol production depends not only on the development of cost effective processing methods, but also on the availability of large quantities of cellulosic biomass for conversion to ...
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Plans in place to fix world food crisis in place by June, UN
The United Nations aims to have a comprehensive plan to tackle the global food crisis in place by the beginning of June, 'around which the institutions and leaders around the world can coalesce,' a top UN official said at a news conference here today. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said that although the breadth and complexity of the issue must be recognized, there ...
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Rice serves up double measure of biofuel and fodder
Japanese scientists have found a potential answer to the biofuel dilemma that if you grow crops for energy, you have to sacrifice crops for food. They report that they can now ferment rice to deliver ethanol, while making silage for cattle feed –and that it can all be done on the farm without need for any expensive off-site processes. Mitsuo Horita, of the National Institute for ...
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Europe’s new protein strategy needs fortifying
Commission proposal should have highlighted crop-based biofuel production’s role in reducing Europe’s need to import soybean meal and other animal feed BRUSSELS, 22 November 2018 – The European Commission’s new proposals for reducing the EU’s so-called ‘protein deficit’ have missed a golden opportunity to highlight an important domestic producer of ...
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Using nature`s resources to store carbon
The ability of the Earth's living systems to store carbon could play a vital role in the mitigation of climate change. A new report suggests that, in coming decades, safeguarding and restoring carbon in ecosystems has the potential to prevent well over 50 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon entering the atmosphere. Last year the EU launched its Climate Action and Renewable Energy package to set a target ...
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Fertilizer run-off killing Gulf of Mexico marine life
Improved management of crops and perennials could go a long way toward alleviating the problem of hypoxia, which claims thousands of fish, shrimp and shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico each spring. An assessment by a team led by Virginia Dale of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Environmental Sciences Division concludes that low oxygen levels in water, or hypoxia, causes problems throughout the ...
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Biochemist studies oilseed plants for biofuel, industrial development
A Kansas State University biochemistry professor has reached a milestone in building a better biofuel: producing high levels of lipids with modified properties in oil seeds. Timothy Durrett, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics in the College of Arts & Sciences, and collaborators at Michigan State University and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln have modified ...
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