February 23, 2012

New US corn hybrid appears promising for biofuel

US scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have identified a new competitor in the production of bioenergy: a temperate and tropical corn hybrid.

Their findings, published in GCB Bioenergy, show that the corn hybrid is potentially capable of producing ethanol from biomass (plant material used for biofuel production) at levels equal to or greater than ethanol produced from grain harvested from current commercial corn hybrids.

"Our maize hybrid, when grown using the same amount of fertiliser as commercial grain hybrids, produced 15-20% more biomass than the commercial hybrids." said Dr Frederick Below, Professor of Crop Physiology at the University of Illinois.

The scientists selected plants with different genetic combinations created from a hybridisation of temperate and tropical corn in order to incorporate beneficial characteristics of both tropical and temperate corn.

Accustomed to a tropical climate, the tropical parent plant experiences a much longer growing season in the Midwest than temperate varieties. Temperate corn minimises the negative traits of tropical corn such as disease and pest vulnerability while maximising positive traits such as drought tolerance.

Both parent plants combine to form a hybrid that grows larger and accumulates more stalk sugars than conventional grain hybrids, factors that increase ethanol output.

The scientists discovered that the hybrids are capable of producing as much ethanol per acre as corn currently grown for ethanol made from grain, but the hybrids require less input such as fertilisers like nitrogen and the ethanol could be produced from the vegetative plant material.

According to Dr Below, "the temperate and tropical corn hybrid has the potential to produce the same amount of ethanol as commercial grain hybrids, but with lower nitrogen fertiliser requirements. This difference makes the hybrid more energy efficient and can result in a more sustainable environmental life cycle."

Corn is often criticised by the scientific community as a poor choice for ethanol given the toll fertilisers can have on the environment. But as Dr Below and his team have shown, the hybrid will significantly lessen the need for fertiliser application and provide an alternative, more environmentally sustainable feedstock for biofuel production.

While this new hybrid may be in its early stages, a wealth of information about corn has been long established, allowing for rapid improvements.