In Brazil, Petrobras is teaming with Embrapa to develop sugarcane varieties that will be successful in temperate climates, especially in Rio Grande do Sul state with the aim of producing ethanol there. Currently that state imports 100% of its ethanol consumption from other states.
In California, VIASPACE announced that the company has entered into a research collaboration with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Division (UCANR). The objectives of the research are to: · Compare the growth of Giant King Grass using subsurface drip irrigation with flood (furrow) irrigation · Compare individual node and whole stalk planting […]
In Montana, a process that improves the nutritional value of barley for use in fish feed has been developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Montana Microbial Products LLC (MMP) of Missoula, Montana. Barley typically contains about 10 to12 percent protein, but 40 to 60 percent protein is needed in diets […]
In Massachusetts, the first higher-value chemical derived from lignin will hit the market in 2021, according to a new Lux Research report. Additionally, thermal routes for converting lignin into smaller chemical constituents appear the best for near-term development; chemical, metallic catalytic, and biological may take longer to come downy the pipeline. Finally, the report also […]
In California, Ceres announced that the company has licensed its Persephone genome visualization application to Bayer CropScience. The multi-year software license and collaboration agreement provides a non-exclusive license to Bayer as well as professional services including support, customizations and maintenance. Originally developed for in-house use by Ceres, Persephone allows researchers to rapidly zoom in and […]
In California, a University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering professor is one of the authors of a paper recently published in Science that outlines ways companies can commercialize and profit from what was thought to a waste product created when producing biofuels. In the paper, the researchers outline the discovery of genetic variants […]
In North Carolina, The N.C. Bioenergy Research Initiative recently awarded $500,000 in grants for six new research projects to boost bioenergy opportunities and production in the state, according to Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “We are excited to have the opportunity to explore bioenergy potential through these grants for North Carolina’s agricultural and forestry industries,” said […]
In the UK, the EnAlgae team has published a paper implying that algae are currently no more productive than palm oil. The authors explain that whilst technologies may be improving, algae physiology remains the limiting factor to achieving higher productivity and that the only way to remedy this is through genetic modification. Authors Phil Kenny […]
In California, researchers from UC Berkeley reviewed a collection of recent literature that mapped bioenergy potential on marginal lands at varying scales, and found that there is no common working definition of marginal land across all of these works. Specifically, they found considerable differences in mapped results that are driven by dissimilarities in definitions, model […]
In Pennsylvania, scientists at Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences have found that glycerol from biodiesel production can act as a potential alternative to the hazardous antifungal agents currently being used to combat one of the most damaging cacao diseases, Phytophthora pod rot (also known as Black Pod), responsible for an estimated 20 […]
