HAVE A GREAT SATURDAY READERS!
I'm SORRY, but my webmaster was not able to turn on the newly re-designed website this afternoon. He had pressing job and family issues to deal with. He assures me that he will turn it on Saturday.
Lots of good football game on Saturday. I sure do hope that LSU can address their lingering mistakes in the game against Townson or they will have a very difficult time against upcoming Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama. We'll know more next week when the Tigers so to the "Swamp" to play Florida. Today's game against Townson is due to kick off at 7:00 pm on ESPNU.
This is an interesting article I ran across on the subject of the possibility of using "Energy Beets" to produce ethanol. I've never heard of "Energy Beets" and do not know the difference between these and regular "sugar beets"? Anything the ethanol industry can do to make ethanol from anything other than corn would be GREAT as it would reduce the pressure on food prices of products made from corn.
"Pete"
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Energy beets outperform corn for ethanol
“Energy beets” have proven to produce double the ethanol of corn
per acre, but what are the economics and where should these beets be grown are
questions still under research. Naturally, energy beets can be grown where
sugar beets are grown, and that pulls North Dakota State University researchers
into the analysis because of all the experience that farmers in the state have
in growing sugar beets.
Beets grown in 2012 looked reasonable, especially compared to some
other crops grown in short moisture situations and high temperatures, although
harvest has not been completed on 14 test plots in 11 locations around North
Dakota.
Previous research has shown yields from 28 tons per acre for dry land
production up to 41 tons per acre on irrigated acres, according to Craig
Talley, beta seed technology manager working with the NDSU Northern Research
Extension Center near Minot. The research is being done under the Beets All
Biofuel project, which is a partnership between the Green Vision Group (GVG) of
Fargo, N.D., and Heartland Renewable Energy (HRE) Muscatine Iowa, with NDSU
extensively involved with the research plot trials across the state.
The goals and participant
quotes about the program are available by reading an online article of the Minnesota Farm Guide written
by Sue Roesler by clicking here.
The promoters of energy beet production see the potential for
about a dozen ethanol plants and energy beets being part of nearly every
farmer’s crop rotation in the Upper Midwest and parts of states east of the
Rocky Mountains.
“Farmers who raise energy beets may see greater soil health
because the tap root penetrates as deep as 6-8 feet, using nutrients, nitrogen
and water that other crops don't reach,” Talley is quoted as saying by Roesler.
“Growers who add energy beets into a three year rotation could expect a
profitable income.”
