Plant a variety of grasses for biofuel production

According to a study done over the years in the US, long-lived plants growing on wasteland of farmers are a very good material for biofuel production.

Researchers claim that the production of biofuels from grasses growing in fields is environmentally beneficial.

Researcher David Tilman
(Photo: cbs.umn.edu)

Since the mid-1990s, researcher David Tilman and colleagues at the University of Minnesota have grown a variety of long-lived grasses on poor minerals. Many plots are planted with a grass, other plots are planted with different types of grass. In the beginning, researchers noted that monoculture did not yield a high harvest.

According to the researchers, to produce biofuels, growing a diverse grass field will harvest 238% more than growing a grass. According to calculations by Tilman and his colleagues in the journal Science, if calculating the entire biofuel production line and comparing the amount of CO2 absorbed by plants, the pasture is six to 16 times more productive. with corn field.

To improve ethanol production, MIT researchers and Whitehead Institute chose another method. They transformed the yeast gene used to incubate corn or other crops during this production process. To some extent, the ratio of ethanol becomes toxic to yeast. Gregory Staphanopoulos' team changed the yeast gene to give it better resistance. The genetically modified yeast produced 50% more ethanol than normal yeast within 21 hours.

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