Canola Oil for Biodiesel...Better??
 

We're farmers in Eastern Washington state and are growing a lot of canola for crushing plants nearby next year. I've read that biodiesel made from canola oil is a superior quality to that made from other oils. Any comments?

I'd like to send a big "HOWDY NEIGHBOR" :-wink to fabmandelux...we're not too far away from you up here. :-D Good luck with your Merger plans!!!

http://logo.cafepress.com/nocache/3/2065193.jpg

This is a question for the Fabulous Fabman

I just read a book someone gave me from the UK. It states that conola/rapeseed oil is the best to use.

Yes SuperPony...that's just what I've read too!! If you haven't seen a canola field before, it is a stunning treat!!! Vibrant, glowing, neon yellow, like the one shown in my bumper sticker image above. They are glorious fields, smelling sweet and fresh. Not like a stinky old crude oil field. We also try to get bee keepers to bring their bees on our fields. Then they are humming with bees and all kinds of life.

I have to confess, as a farmer, I feel very satified knowing that our canola will be part of the energy solution for this country and the world, instead of a source of the problem. Our tractors, combines, swathers, semis, etc., can all run on biodiesel. I'm looking forward to not being dependent on petroleum for producing not only food, but energy as well. It will be tough getting there at first, but I'm optimistic.

Wheatina

Well "HOWDY NEIGHBOR" right back at ya! :-D Welcome to FTE :-X25 Questions! Questions! Where are you located? Are you planning to make the fuel for your farm, or just by it back from a biodiesel plant?

Canola is far superior to Soy! Much better yields, a lower gel point, and it thrives in Eastern Oregon, and Washington. When I went to the University of Idaho this summer they showed me some test plots that were producing in excess of 50 percent oil! AND the seed pods where much more resistant to "shatter" They just received a $5,000,000 grant to do more research on even better yielding Canola, and Mustard.

We planted 50 acres of test plots this fall, and they sure look good!
We're taking back another 1,600 acres this next fall that has been leased out. Hopefully the test plots do well, and we'll plant that to canola also.

Have you met Kent Madison from Echo, Oregon [just down the road from me]?
He is not only crushing canola for Sequential Biofuels, but is making 100,000 gallons per year for his own farm. This will be the wave of the future...........small to mid sized community based biodiesel plants that can utilize the local crops to make fuel for local consumption. LESS FOREIGN OIL!!!!

FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

Hey FabMan! Our canola is north of Connell on two circles, so around 300+ acres of irrigated. We're trying out 3 RoundUp ready varieties. It looks great going into winter. The drylanders up here have varied success with yields depending on conditions. Without perfect fall planting conditions it can be risky on dryland. We've grown it a few times in the past under irrigation and had pretty good success. This will be our first time with RoundUp ready varieties.

If it were up to me, I'd be crushing and making our own BD, but it's not up to me...:-D Anyway, basically we'll leave the processing to others and buy it back.

I don't personally know all the active biodiesel pioneers in the northwest, but have heard of Sequential in Oregon. I'm sure I read an article about Kent this past summer in either the Capital Press or other farming publication. Sure sounds like the right thing to do to me. Seattle Biodiesel, and others, has been over here on the east side actively pursuing growers and communities for BD development. I say, "BRING IT ON!!" There's a plant going in at Warden for sure and many other's rumored.

Keep me updated on your canola trials as they get into next spring. Are they dryland or irrigated? I'll let you know how ours do, too.

Wheat

I'm really surprised you went with "Roundup ready" canola, with all the problems the Canadians have had with it. You need to talk with Ted Durfey in Sunnyside. I'm working with him on building his plant. He's already built the crushing plant, and has found some very interesting info in his field trials. He found that his yield INCREASED by 2,000 lbs/acre by not irrigating in the spring at all. He pre-irrigates in the fall, then nothing more in the spring. It seems that the canola plant is stressed by not watering in the spring, and that "stressing" makes it produce more seeds! This is further confirmed from the University of Idaho's field trials. His plan is to not use his water allotment in the spring, but pre-irrigate after canola harvest, then plant corn for another money crop after the canola.

We should talk.............If you use less than 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel per year you should be able to make your own fuel for about $.50 per gallon!

If your like us, you can make your own processer out of the "treasures" in your own "bone-yard" and be off-grid as far as fuel goes...................


FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

Fab Man...We should probably take this off the board...I doubt people are very interested in reading about our junk backforties and canola varieties...:-missingtI'll send you a private message...

Happy Thankgiving to All!!!

If you want to see Canola fields come to Northern Saskatchewan, just about every other quater is Canola. It is quite a view when everything is in bloom. As for Roundup Ready Canola it has its place. The farmers I know like to use it when the weed pressure is high and they want to clean up the field, which the Roundup does really well and the chemical is cheap. The thing most farmers don't like about it is having to buy seed every year. Most the farmers I know like to clean their own seed and buy new stock when needed. I have grown the modified canola with alot of sucsess and in the long run it is has a better bottom line for me.

Dont take this off the board. I soak up all of the info that is posted and regularly bother that ol fart Don at his house or at the shop.

Don...
 

Here's my email address: wheatina@hotmail.com

Thanks!!!

Wheatina, dont u dare take this off the board we all like to pick each others brain and share ideas. If it werent for the board and lots of talking with Fabman I would not be making my own bio. So keep up the flow of info we all benefit. Jeep1947

Geeze Jeep, off your med's today? :-missingt



FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

Wheatina, if you take it off the board, people like me who are trying to learn as much as possible from Fabman and other people like you will suffer from lack of necessary knowledge. I, enjoy reading this, especially knowing some day we will not be dependant on foreign oil anymore. Thanks

Ok...ok....ok!! Sorry!! I didn't know everyone would be interested in canola varieties or our junk yards....:-X14 Fab and I really haven't gotten back into talking about canola and our activities growing it, but we'll talk about it on here when we do.

I can see, now that I think about it, that people interested in biodiesel WOULD be interested in how those of us with the land and means to grow the oil seeds are bringing the oil to you!! IT IS YOUR CONCERN TOO!!! And, I'm very pleased to see that you all are interested. It is important...no...it's critical that people understand how important all this is to our nation's future.

Fab and I will keep you in on the discussion!!:-D

Canola varieties update...I guess
 

Hi Don...I read through the RR canola articles. Interesting! At this point we'll just have to see what develops...the seed is in the ground. One of the reason we grew the RR canola was to help clean up the cheat grass always present in our fields in the region. It will be very interesting to see if this RR canola manages to spread as it has in Canada. They have a lot more moisture up there than we do and grow their canola on dryland farms. We can't do that where we are, so that would reduce the chance of unwanted spread of seed. However, there are lots of circles all around the area. We'll just have to keep a close eye on it at this point.

I guess I find it interesting that considering the Canadian issues, the local seed companies were able to sell the RR canola. Do you have any info on that??

Also, a lot of this was going on around 6 years ago...any updates from Canada that are more recent??

I sent you an email...yesterday, I think...did you get it?? Sometimes my Hotmail emails get filtered out and people miss them.

Morning Becky, You need to rethink this RR canola thing. Summerfallow should REDUCE the amount of volunteer, because of tilling in the "off" years. Canadian experience shows just the opposite is true, canola seed can lay dormant for better than 6 years!

Water is not much of an issue with canola, this plant is basically a desert plant, and will produce MORE seeds when "stressed" with less water in the spring.


Growing RR Canola on circles does not allow time for summerfallow, so tilling the volunteer canola is not an option. The volunteer RR Canola MUST be removed with chemicals, which has been shone to be difficult, if not impossible............

As to why local seed companies promote RR Canola? Salesman will sell anything............
We've found that cheat grass is not much of a problem with canola stands that are well developed going into winter, the "leafy" canola shades the ground, and does not allow much weed growth.

I will look in my files and see if I have any newer info on the Canadian problem.

What variety of seed did you plant, and how many lbs per acre? Sorry I did not get your last email. You are in my address book, so my spam filter should not stop any incoming emails.


FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

Yea...but rethinking is really not an option at this point, since the seed is already in the ground. We'll have to see what happens at this point and do what we can to control accidental spread. I guess I'm wondering how the local seed guys were "allowed" to bring this seed in, if the problems have not been solved in Canada. But, like you said, if there's money to be made, they'll try to make it. Bush admin hasn't been too interested in environmental concerns...maybe things got too relaxed on this issue.

We don't worry about the cheat in the canola fields...we worry about it in the bluegrass fields planted after canola.

Becky, my concern for you is that canola "volunteers" about 20 percent of the total crop, what would that do to the bluegrass?



FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

We'll be spraying bluegrass for broadleaves anyway...not using RoundUp. Hopefully, that will take care of the "volunteers".

Let's continue with further discussion about canola and biodiesel.

Fab...you said we should be able to make our own BD for around 50 cents/gal.. Does that include crushing?? Do you crush your own??

Oh...and I learned the other day that we actually have 1 1/2 circles uncontacted...only contracted 1/2 circle. So we're talking about 700,000-900,000 lbs of open market seed...how much oil will that produce? Anyone interested in buying some fresh canola seed to crush next summer??:)

800,000 lbs of seed should yeald 296,000lbs of oil X 98 percent conversion = 290,000 of biodiesel @ 6.7 lbs/gal = 43,295 gallons of Biodiesel! PLUS 504,000 lbs of feedmeal @ $140/ ton :-bigparty


Offroad fuel is selling here for $2.67 / gallon now, that means your 43,295 gallons is worth.........$115,597.65 + 252 tons of feedmeal @ $140 = $77,616.


This yealds a grand total of $193,213! The partys at your place!!!


Crushing costs is the lowest part of making biodiesel. We don't have our crusher yet, won't be here untill spring. We bought a small unit for testing, it will crush aprox 2,000 lbs of oil per day, and cost about $1,000.



I have 2 customers that would probably buy all of your seed if you wish to sell it, BUT WHY!!!I don't know how much diesel you buy each year, but why not make your own!

If you have a good fabricator/ mechanic on the farm, you could build your own system for very little cash out of pocket, and be "off-grid" as far as fuel goes.

The 500 gallon / day plant I designed for Bill Riley/USDA would easily do 50,000 gallons/year, and should cost around $50,000 or less even if you had someone else build it..............We should talk!



FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

SOUNDS SO GOOD!!! I'll have to dig into our records and see how much diesel we buy each year.

We'll sell the extra canola to the highest bidder...of course. We have semis for transporting to a buyer in the Washington/Oregon area at harvest. Our contracted portion is for 13cents/lb, so we're hoping for a little more on the open market.

I emailed Bill Riley...we're signed up and will be at the demo in Moses Lake Dec. 11th. Real anxious to meet you!!:-wink

What would a sizable crusher cost?? We can build just about anything else we would need most likely. Would be a good winter project. Lots and lots and LOTS of junk out back that we could probably use. :-X15 Wer'e the "never throw anything away" types.:-missingt Same farm for 4 generations...you can imagine all the junk.

I'll pass your numbers on to the group and see what kind of reaction I get. I'd be right on top of this if it were just me making the decisions.

Who do you sell your meal to?? Dairies?? Feedlots?? Both?? Do hogs like canola meal?? Chickens?? We've got a large chicken ranch nearby and a small hog farm, too.

More numbers...
 

Fab...I took your numbers and worked up a spreadsheet. What fun!! Showed it to my husband and he's cranking the brain cells. We really need to find out how much the BD will cost us to make in equipment, labor, transport and processing supplies. Do you have any numbers for those??

Also, the equivalent value of our canola seed per lb. goes from 13 cents to 18 cents per pound, if we turned the seed into BD and feedmeal. But, that doesn't include the processing costs. We need to see those to honestly evaluate all this.

Oh...and are there some alternative fuel tax credits for users and not just producers??

I also spent the time digging through our diesel records. We use around 12,000 gal. diesel/year. We'd be able to produce over twice as much BD from our open market canola.

And one other thought...what about any taxes the state or feds might want to charge us for using homemade BD on highways?? Know anything about that??

Oh so many questions!! Thanks!!

I would not even consider selling till harvest! There are a bunch of new biodiesel plants coming on line next summer-fall, and I think there will be a bidding war from companies trying to find enough canola.............

How much oil do you want to crush? The model we ordered will do 2,000 pounds/ day or about 120 gallons / day COMPLETELY UNATENDED. That's 3,600 gallons per month or 43,200 gallons per year. One nice thing about doing this on farms is the fact that you can store the seed and crush for oil as needed. This eliminates the need for a tank farm.
"crushers" range from $1,000 to $150,000, but we're not talking about 30,000,000 gallons a year here!

Can't wait to prowl your bone-yard:) And there "treasures" never junk!:-D

Canola meal is about 40 percent protean, and works great for all livestock. I have two University studies, both have shone the ability for mixing 10 percent[by weight] of the glycerol byproduct with livestock feeds. One study is for cattle, and the other is for chickens! If you would like them just let me know and I'll send them[there Pdfs].


FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

That's just what I said, Fab, "Don't price the open market canola until harvest!!!" Besides...I'd like to be in the position to possibly keep some for us to use and if we price it, it's gone.

Okay Fab...what size crusher would we need if we wanted to crush out around 13,000lb of oil to use on the farm?? And, how much would that cost??:-D

Does mixing the glycerol byproduct back into the meal use up all the glycerol??

Oh and YES...please do email any PDFs or info files you have concerning any of the topics we chat about on here!! I love to read all that stuff!! THANKS!!!

Where do I start?:-tap Your making this old brain work to hard;)


You need to change the way your thinking about this. We as farmers need to do what we do best.........Grow things! Competing with large commercial biodiesel plants will not work! Selling fuel to the public, adds large amounts of $$$$ and huge amounts of BS to the process of farming. My whole focus is to remove the energy dependence of the family farm.

Making the fuel we need will change the way we farm. Off road fuel is exempt from most government interference! You do not have to register your fuel with the EPA, and you don't have to join the NBB [and send them $$$]. The amount of fuel you use for on-road is kept in a separate tank and you send the State their $.24, and the Feds their $.23 for every gallon used. Simple!

You said you use about 12,000 gallons/ year? The "stuff" you need to make that amount of fuel is most likely already in your bone-yard! It was in mine!

Sell what you don't need for the farm on the open market, there is a very strong demand for this seed crop in the northwest and it will continue to grow, BUT CONTROL YOUR OWN FUEL!

Want to do more??? Form a Co-Op with other local farms, even with those that can't grow canola, and every member can purchase off-road fuel for farming without Gov interference!

I'll send you my phone # by reg email, Please call me and we can discuss this in more detail.


FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

Yes indeedy...that's what I'm talking about. I want to know what a crusher would cost to make just what we need for the farm. I'm not interested in producing fuel to sell to the public...others will be doing that.

But, as you said, why not make our own since we will have the canola and "junk" to put something together realitively inexpensively. It would appear to me that our biggest expense to make our own will be the crusher...that's why I'm asking for a price estimate on that. I suppose I could seach the net myself, but you seem to have a lot of the info in your head :-X21 .

We can visit at the Moses Lake meeting about all this in a couple of weeks. That will give us some time to work up lots of specific questions.

AND...if the demo in Moses doesn't last too long, we could take you by our bone pile to see what we have that we could use. If you go home through the Tri-Cities, we'd be right on the way. Or, not too far off the path south.

AND...if we take our discussion about this off the forum we'll get yelled at again!!!:-X19

12,000 gallons of fuel will require about 240,000 lbs of seed. The small oil expeller we've ordered would do that amount in 120 days, spread out over a whole year. I'll call my supplier this afternoon and get a price on a larger unit.



FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire

Actually, that sound like just about the size we need. We'd make it on a monthly basis, mostly late spring/summer/early fall...making it as we needed it. Wouldn't one about the size of yours do that for us??

Try this one, it will do about 2.5 tons/day, which will produce about 250 gallons per day. http://www.oekotec.ibg-monforts.de/en/24.html


My sales rep will call me back with price and availibility.


FABMANDELUX. :-X25 :-fire