Cultivating a Crop of Hope

Long, Tall Switchgrass Has Promise Uprooting Corn as a Main Source Of Ethanol and as a Boon For Ex-Tobacco Farmers

Researchers across the country think that switchgrass could help supplant corn as a source for the fast-growing ethanol industry. In Virginia, some officials are trying to make the state the Iowa of the new cash crop. They’re urging farmers to grow it and envision dozens of refineries that will turn the stalks into fuel.

…But such efforts have hit a snag: Scientists haven’t perfected the process that turns switchgrass into ethanol. So for today, the Crop That Could Change Virginia is just hay with better publicity.



The plant behind all the hoopla, Panicum virgatum, looks a bit like a corn plant without the cob. It has a thin, rigid stalk with a feathery tassel of seeds. Scientists say switchgrass probably grew wild across the eastern two-thirds of the United States for centuries before Europeans arrived.

But, except for plant biologists and some biofuel researchers, few Americans had heard of the plant before last year’s State of the Union address. President Bush listed switchgrass among potential sources for ethanol, a gasoline substitute sought as a replacement for imported oil.

Researchers say switchgrass has much to recommend it over corn, the source of almost all U.S. ethanol. For one thing, it isn’t also food — the ethanol-driven demand for corn has pushed up prices on a range of items, from tortillas to steak. For another, switchgrass requires little of the irrigation and fertilizer necessary to grow corn, a prima donna among crops.

Washington Post