American Agriculturist
www.FarmProgress.com – February 2012
Crops
13
Sunflowers can be food — and fuel, too
Key Points
■ Messiah College’s project gets double use
from sunflowers.
■ Oil is first used as cooking oil, then
cleaned again for biodiesel use.
■ Potential is seen in double-cropping and
for byproduct livestock feed.
By SONIA MULLALLY
T
HE “food vs. fuel” debate is a hot
national agriculture-policy issue. A
unique project at Pennsylvania’s Messiah College, however, is taking a notably
different tack – to “food and fuel.”
In 2011, five acres of sunflowers were
planted and harvested to be pressed for
use in the campus kitchens, and the used
cooking oils then converted into biodiesel
for use on campus.
Mike Zummo, Messiah College’s
biodiesel
project
manager, says the
pilot project’s goal is
to create a full-cycle
energy plan beginning
with sunflower and
ending with biodiesel.
“It’s about creating a
closed loop. “We produce the product, process it, use it for food,
and then bring it back
around and turn it into
biodiesel that we use
on campus as a source
of fuel for the press [for
next year’s crop] and
other areas on campus.
We’re really getting
double the value with
our oil in food and fuel.”
It was the firstever venture into
sunflowers for farmer
Lynn Wingert, who has been renting the
college’s land for almost 40 years. Wingert,
also a Pioneer sales representative, went
to the National Sunflower Association
website, www.sunflowernsa.com, for information. Then he consulted with his company’s supply people to come up with a
short list of hybrids.
They decided on an ExpressSun variety.
The field had been no-till corn for 15 years.
Some fertilizer was applied with the preemergence herbicide package of Dual II
Magnum, Prowl H²O and Gramoxone.
Using starter fertilizer at planting,
Wingert planted in 30- inch rows at a target
population of 20,000. An extremely wet
spring caused planting to be pushed back
to mid-May. A few days later, a heavy rain
took a toll on the stand.
Then came the 100-degree-F summer
heat. And in early fall, just when the plants
looked mature, 18 inches of rain fell over a
20-day period. That delayed harvest until
early October.
Total yield of the 5-acre plot was only
7,500 pounds. “It was a bit frustrating,”
concedes Wingert, of the first year’s experience. “But we knew that for 5 acres, we
couldn’t invest in specialized equipment.”
Zummo estimates that 1 acre of sunflowers will normally yield about 100 gallons of cooking oil. With the help of a USDA
research grant, he has been converting
DUAL-PURPOSE POTENTIAL: The 2011 growing season took a toll on Messiah
College’s biofuel field. Despite harvesting a poor stand, Lynn Wingert believes
there’s potential in oilseed sunflowers.
Advertisement
Bioinnovation Bulletin
cooking oil into biodiesel on a small scale
for more than 10 years. For more than a
year, about 3,000 gallons of waste vegetable cooking oils have been processed
into biodiesel.
The field had high visibility — right at
the campus entrance. “I joked that maybe
we should hide the field over the hills
somewhere since this was our first try,”
Wingert says. Much to everyone’s surprise, the field’s struggle turned into a sort
of billboard advertisement for the project.
“This project was collaboration that
involved the campus, the community and
the farming sector,” notes Craig Dalen,
Messiah’s sustainability coordinator. “We
generated attention for the sustainability
project. We also used it as an opportunity
to learn, foster stewardship and build community.”
Looking ahead
Despite less-than-spectacular results,
the project is likely to expand this year.
Wingert sees sunflowers as a possible
double-crop option.
“It’s within our reach,” adds Zummo, “to
someday reach 30 acres with this project
to take care off of all on-campus dining-hall
needs.” He and Dalen also are looking into
using another byproduct of the crush —
the sunflower cake — for local farmers to
feed to livestock.
Source: National Sunflower Association
MultiAction® inoculants
deliver maximum impact
Just as seed with stacked traits frequently delivers the greatest
performance and yield in your fields, biofertility products and
inoculants with multiple modes of action are formulated to deliver
better performance in soybeans and other legume crops.
Novozymes offers a full range of biofertility products that
include both single-action inoculants and MultiAction products.
Single-action inoculants like Cell-Tech® contain an elite strain of
rhizobium that facilitates greater nodulation and nitrogen fixation
in host crops.
But our MultiAction biofertility products deliver even more
bang for the buck by combining elite rhizobia with other
biological plant growth enhancement technologies.
Kay Little
Novozymes sales representative
614-562-6845
[email protected]
Optimize® combines the elite rhizobia strain, selected for its
specific host crop, with LCO Promoter Technology®. The LCO
(Lipo-chitooligosaccharide) boosts plant performance by triggering early and rapid root
and shoot development – independent of soil conditions – for enhanced water and
nutrient uptake that leads to better season-long plant health and vigor.
TagTeam® combines the elite rhizobia with the phosphate solubilizer Penicillium bilaii
(P. bilaii), a naturally occurring soil fungus that breaks the bonds that trap mineral-form
phosphate in soils and increases the availability of this critical nutrient to plants. P. bilaii
and the nitrogen-fixing rhizobia work in tandem to increase phosphate and nitrogen
efficiency.
TagTeam LCO is new for the 2012 growing season. It combines the elite nitrogen-fixing
rhizobia with the phosphate-solubilizing characteristics of P. bilaii and the valuable
plant-growth enhancement qualities of LCO Promoter Technology to deliver the ultimate
performance in MultiAction biofertility products.
I look forward to answering any questions you might have about our biofertility products.
Please contact me at [email protected] or call 614-562-6845.
Novozymes is the world leader in bioinnovation. Together with customers
across a broad array of industries we create tomorrow’s industrial biosolutions,
improving our customers’ business and the use of our planet’s resources.
®
LCO Promoter Technology, MultiAction, Optimize, Cell-Tech and TagTeam are
registered trademarks of Novozymes A/S. © 2012 Novozymes. All rights reserved.
0112-17406-3-AAg