New crops to boost biofuel

The State News
By Emily Wilkins

Corn is about to get some competition in the biofuel industry.

A team of professors from MSU’s Department of Entomology examined several biofuel crops to see how many beneficial insects were attracted to the plants and found several other potential biofuel crop candidates.

Corn is a common biofuel source and makes up 30 percent to 40 percent of the cropping landscape in the Great Lakes region, said Douglas Landis, an entomology professor who worked on the project.

Research from the team’s report, which was published Saturday in an online edition of the journal BioEnergy Research, shows farmers could benefit from diversifying biofuel crops.

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