Our yield last year was 4,200 lbs/acre. the oil yield was 40% by weight or 240 gallons/acre

We should get about 25,000 gallons off the 100 acres this season.

Canola yeald varies greatly. It depends on if it is fall seeded, or spring seeded, how much moisture is available, etc. We've found the best results in our area is fall seeding before Sept 15th.

I have some test plots of Camelina this spring that look very promising.

 

I looked up some numbers last night and it looks like we yielded 1200 to 1500 pounds per acre. I am going to check with my Uncle and find out if it was spring or fall planting. Do you irrigate? our property is all dry land outside of Pomeroy.

 

fabman,

What type of press are you usng for Canola and Camelina seed oil extraction? Based on your numbers, I think 1 acre of Camelina might just produce enough oil for my needs.

Thanks,
Ernie

 

Hey Fab!! This is so great!! Glad to hear you're still in the BD business! It's be awhile since I've been on here, so I hadn't kept up with your progress. We have two canola circles this year again...and, for those worried about the "fuel for food" issue, we grow our canola on ground that would otherwise be left empty. The canola allows us to grow a crop on land that would otherwise produce NOTHING, so we aren't contributing to food price increases or starving babies (which is all oil company BS and mis-guided environmentalists to turn people away from biofuels anyway mainly talking about ethanol..not BD). I've been worried about our WA state BD producers...glad to hear our Oregon brothers are still going full steam ahead! Just poppin' in to say HEY!

 

Wheatina
WB it has been a while.
I applaud your decision to grow oil feed stock crops on land not used for food crop production.
Those that chose otherwise are responsible, in part, for the large jump in food prices. I realize that fuel costs also contribute to the price increase but there needs to be more thought given to the process before converting land from food crop production to oil seed production. I have always advocated using land NOT used for food crops to grow biofuel crops.

I sincerely hope you are a trend setter.

 

Thanks Phydeaux88, but I can't claim to being that noble. We grow canola because we can't grow anything else on that ground. We just don't have enough water to spread around to grow anything else, except canola and possibly camelina. Canola needs moisture to germinate in the fall, but is happy to go without much water after that. It's the nature of canola that allows us to grow it on what would otherwise be empty ground.

I personally believe increased food prices are due more to oil/fuel price increases, increase fertilizer prices, droughts last year in Austrail and other countries, the drop in the value of the dollar, and commodity speculators, than the biofuels. Biofuels are only a tiny part of the price increases you are seeing in your food, yet they're getting most of the blame. Somebody is behind this negative PR towards biofuels...gee...I wonder who. The speculators went nuts this winter over wheat, corn and soybeans.

You're also hearing about how great farmers are doing now, too, due to commodity price increases. Well, the truth is the prices have gone back down and even though they are still around twice what we were getting in the past, we're back to breaking even due to the over 130% increase in diesel, gas, fertizers, etc.. Folks...we're not raking it in as all the media would like you to believe. What urks me is even when our prices for what we grow goes down, I doubt very much that you'll see any decrease in what you pay for a loaf of bread. They never go back down once they go up. Plus, to get that grain processed and shipped to the stores is still going up due to oil prices. Another new record high today on oil...almost $130/barrel!!

Don't blame biofuels and farmers for the bulk of these price increases...Please!! It's the oil more than anything!

 

Nicly put Wheatina, people just dont realize that the cost of farming has gone up expedentially in the last 5 years but our food prices have not. People like Al Gore are mostly to blame for the bad press that bio gets. He is still preaching about the global warming scam and freightening people into beliving his thoughts on it and ignoring the information supplied by scientists that a year ago were worried about global warming and are now worried about global cooling. Make up your mind chicken little! sorry I just had to rant about the chicken little people out there. No offense Philly, you are just poorly informed.

 

Wheatina
I don't blame farmers, particularly the independent family owned farms.
I am not a farmer; although I have a few acres I grow some hay on.
Anyway I don't know all the logistics involved and I know for a fact the guy at the start of the chain (the producer of raw material) gets the short end of the stick, no matter what chain you are talking about.

I can only respond to what I see in the news and I read many sources.

Unfortunately the switch to BioFuels was made in a hurry without much thought given to the impact on other aspects of life. When you hear that a significant portion of the corn crop is being diverted from food use to ethanol production and that land normally used for other foods, IE wheat and rice, are being diverted to corn to support ethanol, it is easy to blame the Bio fuels industry for the supply shortages that cause increased food costs.
The really sad part is that the UN warned about the impact on the world wide food supply; I hate to admit the UN is right about anything but in this case I must.

There has got to be some organization and realism associated with the inevitable switch to BioFuels:
First the bio fuel industry has to realize that corn is not the best crop to use for alcohol production. Just as some oil seeds produce higher yields of Bio diesel per acre than others some feed stocks for ethanol produce higher yields per acre than others.
Corn is not the best crop for either bio fuel. Corn should be reserved for food, both human and livestock. If that does not occur there will be food riots in future.

Second during extraction of oil from oil seeds a hi carbohydrate cake is left. This cake can be fermented to produce ethanol so Biodiesel and Ethanol production facilities can and should be co-located. It only makes sense to use crops for biofuel production if the maximum use is made of the crop.

Third there is land available for use that is not currently used to grow food crops. it is this land that should be used for bio fuel feed stock production. Once again if you want to avoid future riots reducing acerage used for food crops to grow bio fuel crops cannot be tolerated.

 

Here's something to think about. If we're going to talk about acreage available for growing food, we should look at what good crop acres and water are used to grow non-food crops...like tobacco. How about grass seed for golf courses and homeowner lawns. Flowers?? I don't know the number, but I have a feeling we could grow a lot more food if those acres were used.

 

Wheatina
There are crops available for oil production that grow in places not suitable for growing food crops.
I agree that land used for tobacco is a prime choice for other crops. However, certain crops like various Palms, Chinese Tallow trees, Castor beans, etc can be grown in areas that are not suitable for food crops. Additionally a lot of consideration should be given to algae, which can be grown anywhere you can put a pond about 1 foot deep. The Sonara dessert has been suggested as the perfect location, tons of sunlight, a water source rich in nutrients (the Salton Sea), and land not adaptable to any other use. The UNH has projected that 15,000 sq miles of pond surface, out of the over 200,000 sq miles in the desert, would produce enough algae to provide all of the transportation fuel needs for the U. S., if all gasoline engines were replaced with diesels.

UNH Biodiesel Group

 

Good point, but getting 15,000 square miles of desert habitat turned into an algae pond would probably get the environmentalists in an uproar. I'd rather see acres already in production for non-essential crops used for food and fuel production first.

 

Perhaps we should tell the environmentalists to "Get a Grip on Reality"
I agree with the non-essential crop idea. Besides tobacco what other crops fit that description?

The goal here is to completely stop buying oil from terrorists and to generate new jobs in the U.S.

 

Hi Becky! My turn Try this! I posted this link in the General Forum over a month ago, I guess some people don't visit there often.....................

YouTube - Vertical Algae biofuel Growing (see description and invest)


I've spent some time with Glen, WOW! His company is on the leading edge of the Algea/bio research field. Tell me what you think of this.

The great thing about his process is you don't need 15,000 acres in one place! What about 2 acres in 7,500 PLACES all over the country!!! NO MORE CENTRALIZED FUEL PRODUCTION.

 

This is going on close to home for me, less than 200 miles away



First Algae Biodiesel Plant Goes Online: April 1, 2008 : Gas 2.0

 

Fabman,
I have a question on your continous flow plant.
How are you removing the methanol from the bio before the magnesol cleaning stage?