Biomass Research

KSmc.com
Sep 9 2009 1:48PM
KXMBTV Bismarck

Farmers are always trying to generate as many dollars as possible from their acres., but when does taking too much from the soil turn negative? At the Northern Great Plains Research Lab south of Mandan one expert is trying to find out if you can harvest your crop and all the plant that comes with it...without hurting your long-term production.

It's about give and take.

You can only expect so much from your soil before you better start looking at giving a little back. (Dave Archer / Ag. Economist) "How do you maintain the soil resource at what point is it worth economically is it worth removing that material versus returning it to the soil and having it enhance productivity of subsquent crops." Ag Economist Dave Archer is breaking down the dollars and cents of harvesting biomass. (Dave Archer / Ag. Economist) "So we can look at some of those trade offs on getting paid for it right now versus what you are going to lose in terms of crop yields." Archer says if cellulosic materiallike strawbecomes a standard staple in creating bio-energy we need to know how much material we can harvest off our fields without hurting the soil.

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