Please hurry Just went to hess $4.99 9/10. per gal. and on the rise!

 

Re switching to a camelina crop.
The idea would be to plant acerage not already in production for food otherwise you will run into the same problem as you have with corn now,a negative impact on the economy.


Palm trees grow slowly compared to grasses or other grains thus any harvest of palm oil nuts is a few years down stream. That said you must start sometime.

BTW Corn and soybeans are not all that great as oil feed stocks.

 

Yeah, but you just won the superbowl, the parade had to be paid for somehow.

 

That is what got this whole thread going...the negative feedback bio-mass based fuels have been getting. For the sake of discussion, do I understand correctly that Palm nuts have the highest yield of oil when compaired to other oil producing plants? We learned a couple of pages back that algae is the preferred methoud of oil production...but in dersert areas, would plam trees work better instead of using allot of energy to pump water there for algae production? Just thinking out load here.

 

holly crap is that for diesel or bio or what.. WFT.. thats just nuts.. and what state is that in.

 

You pretty much have it down.
The only modifications I would make to your statement are that Palms would grow well in many places as long as the weather doesn't get to cold, I believe they are sub-tropical to tropical by nature. As a basic rule I would look at areas that grow citrus. Algae ponds would actually do well in desert areas, all the sunlight would produce bumper crops.

The principal point is that these should not replace food crops but should be grown on previously unused land. When you start impacting the food supply there will be reprecussions. Ever since biofuels became the latest fad I have advocated that concept unfortunately I do not have a voice with the right folks.
A side note once the oil is extracted from seeds, for BD production, the resdidual "cake" makes an excellent animal feed. I don't believe that is true for ethanol production.

You have seen me speak of switch grass, it's actually camelinas counterpart for ethanol. My original presentation called for replacement of all gasoline/ethanol powered engines with diesel but realistically you cannot expect that to happen overnight. It will take many years to eliminate them from use. There are other sugar rich plants that will work well for ethanol production, for example sugar beets. There is no need to use food crops for ethanol or BD feed stocks.

While I am on this rant I might as well get a plug in for my other soap box issue. I have said that we should not use currently productive farmland for biofuel production. I do not include land used to grow tobacco in that category. I would like to see the current tobacco subsidies totaly stopped. The monies that would have gone to tobacco should be spent helping tobacco farmers switch to a biofuel crop. There would have to be an increase for a few years until the switch is completed and the farms are profitable then the subsidy should stop.

 

Whooaaa The DDGS from ethanol are excellent!!! Its somewhat hard to come by nowa days. I know several neighbors that use it in the feedstock mix. However, there are some animals that gain no nutritional value from it.

So putting these huge algae ponds in the middle of the desert. What about evaporation? Do you remember what happened to Lake Optima in Oklahoma? They made this huge lake out in the panhandle that never filled up because the water evaporated faster than it could accumulate.

I don't know about other areas, but in Western Iowa a man would be had pressed to find idle ground. The midwest in general. Perhaps the idea location would be in the high plans where most farmers do a rotation that leaves a field fallow for a season. However, that would kind of ruin the point.

 

If the "DDGS" from ethanol is so good for animal feed why is the price of feed so high currently.

I dont know about Iowa or for that matter most states and I doubt that raising biofuel feed stock is for every farmer but it is an idea for non-productive land. I am most familiar with the west and I can tell you that from west TX to the pacific there are 100s of miles upon 100s of miles of nothing. Some being used for cattle but when you are looking at tens of acres per cow one must wonder at the efficiency of cattle in those areas.

 

I think you have to look at the big picture. Sure, feed is expensive, but what isn't expensive anymore? We don't have any livestock anymore so I can't tell you exactly what item in feed is causing it to be expensive. I'm the price of diesel and corn have something to do with it.

The truth to the matter is that everyone thinks farmers are making all this money because of high prices. This is only true for the individuals that pre-paid on there fertilizer/chemicals/diesel. It costs more to produce an arce of corn than we netted 4 years ago.

The reason why people can raise cattle on 1 head per 15 acres is because value of the land is so low. Essentially it costs nothing to have that wide of spread. Just like the wheat farmers in western Kansas. They farm ground that has less potential. They put in less inputs, but farm more acres. They over come the poor yields by increases arces. Thats how its profitable. I'm sure the same thing applies to cattle.

Then you have to worry about the soil characteristics. Is the soil able to sustain crop removal year after year? What about N,P, and K levels. There are tons of questions that need to be answered.

I'm not saying its not possible. I'm not familiar with that part of the country. It just seems really risky to me to grow something there, even if there was a market.

 

It seems to me the biggest problem with raising any kind of bio feedstock in the western United States is proper management of water for irrigation or algea ponds. There is plenty of land that is not being farmed/used because of **** poor water management and regulations. Thanks mostly to the environuts and weak minded politicians. In fact in California where I live most of the fresh water is used for the cities now days not the farm lands. And the politicians are constantly on the farmers backs about using too much water. I wonder where these brainiac politicians think we will get our food when the successfully regulate the farmers out of business? Sorry for the rant. I just get so tired of the idiots in this state screwing everything up because they don't have the common sense to think poblems through from begining to a useful end. Jim

 

I don't advocate closing your eyes and jumping in. Of course you have to ensure the land will support the crop. But if you dont check it out I can guarentee usable land will never become productive.

FYI
www.camelinacompany.com/
Check out the "grower information" and "agronomics" links

 

When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's vacaville was all farmland. There were nut trees and corn and cows. Now it is a big city. These cities use more water than the farmers. So there is a reason we are always so low on water and the city population gets first choice for water. Just a little over population of our beautiful state.

 

Never mind.........................

 

One of the advantages of algae is that is uses water not used for consumption or other Ag uses. That is it will do well with sea water or outflow from sewage treatment plants.

 

Phydeaux88, have you thought about running for President? Some of the ideas that have come up during the course of this thread make more since and solve more problems for this country than the last three Presidents have done. Sure as the world have better ideas/plans than the last dozen sessions of Congress. If you ran...with just the ideas for biomass fuel production...I'd vote for ya'. Even if your are from Texas...GO HOGS GO, Beat Texas.