Friday, September 3, 2010

Extension newsletter: The Upper Midwest Food, Fuel and Fiber Network Tour

Greetings from Purdue! No I haven’t fled across the border; I’m attending the Upper Midwest Food, Fuel and Fiber Network Tour. Don’t worry, I will be back in time to watch the Bucks game on Thursday. The tour this year is highlighting research and innovation in biofuels production, energy conservation, and crop production. There is too much to discuss from the trip in this short article but I'll try to highlight some of the most applicable presentations for Darke County.

The first stop on the trip was the Throckmorton Purdue Ag Research Center. The tour of the research farm showed the breadth of topics that Purdue is investigating. Production of grass crops like switchgrass and miscanthus for processing into cellulosic ethanol is a research topic being studied by most land grant institutions including The Ohio State University. These two crops are very promising; however, seed costs with switchgrass are constantly climbing and miscanthus can only be consistently grown by transplanting root rhizomes that at the moment are being planted by hand. A promising alternative to these perennial crops is an annual crop of either forage sorghum or photoperiod sorghum. These sorghum crops are familiar to producers who may already be working with their close relative sudangrass. I had a little experience with these crops in my time at Kansas State University and I can tell you a June planting will result in sorghum plants almost 16 feet tall! Plus they are annual crops that will fit into a corn-soybean rotation.

The next stop on the wagon ride around the center was to look at high tunnel greenhouse production to extend the growing season for specialty crops. The plastic wrapped greenhouses are easy to construct and can extend the growing season from March into late fall and for some crops even allow year round production. Several production methods were being investigated but ground planting, not in buckets, with tarping to prevent weeds, and drip irrigation allowed the highest yields.

The program continued into the night at the Meigs Hort Farm and the following day we convened at Tip Top farms to discuss REAP grants being used for grain dryer purchase and installation. The group also toured the Horizon Wind Energy Farm covering over 92,000 acres in Indiana. More information on the wind farm can be found at www.horizonwind.com/home.

Today (Wednesday) ended with two stops, one in BioTown, USA, and one at the historic Prophetstown Farm - http://prophetstown.org is the website for the farm which would make a great weekend destination for a family. BioTown, USA, is a project to run Reynolds, IN., on renewable resources. Two of the town's many features were highlighted by the tour. The first was the algae wheel water treatment facility - www.algaewheel.com. This facility uses algae to clean excess nutrients from sewer water instead of traditional lagoon ponds. The algae are then collected, compressed and marketed for process into everything from green coal to some experimental products including poultry feed. The other highlight of BioTown, USA, was BioTown Ag who are installing an anaerobic digester that will collect methane gas produced in the breakdown process of the manure. This gas will be used to power generators that will provide every single one of the 3 Megawatts used by the town.

The tour showcased much of the research and the innovative thinking coming from Indiana. Don’t worry, because next year The Ohio State University will be hosting the tour. We will be showcasing the best Ohio has to offer in innovation. If you know of any producers or companies we can highlight in the tour next year please contact me as planning for next year is in its infancy. Also, if anyone is interested in joining the tour as an attendee I can keep you informed of the dates and travel plans. To discuss any of the topics in the article or to inform me of what Darke County has to offer in sustainability contact Justin Petrosino at OSU Extension, Darke County, at 548-5215. O-H!

Justin Petrosino, ANR Extension Educator, OSU Extension, Darke County

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