Don't count out ag

Capital Press
11/13/2008 6:00:00 AM
Don Curlee
For the Capital Press

If you're having doubts about agriculture's ability to contribute to the nation's fuel supplies, the Agricultural Research Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture has a word for you.

Actually, several words.

Some are the names of crops that can lead to the production of ethanol or other bioenergy sources. For example, serious research is being done with these oilseed plants: sunflower, soybean, canola, camelina, castor bean, peanut, lesquerella, white, brown and black mustard, jatropha, cuphea, African oil palm and algae.

And those are in addition to the more familiar grain sources for fuel, such as corn, barley and sorghum and sugar sources like beets and sugarcane and the cellulose contributors switchgrass, poplar, miscanthus and alfalfa.

You have a right to expect many of these words to be more familiar to the legislators who determine the direction of domestic fuel production. Washington, D.C., is home to the ARS U.S. National Arboretum where many of these "power plants" are grown, nourished and studied for their ability to produce fuel and other bioenergy.

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