Is corn stover the next big biofuel?

Des Moines Register
By DAN PILLER • dpiller@dmreg.com • October 24, 2010

West Amana, Ia. - If the cobs, stalks and leaves left behind after corn harvest become the next big source for ethanol, the technology to pick up the stover is decidedly old-school.

"A farmer who bales hay can do this," Steve Petersen, end-use market manager for Monsanto, said as he guided a tractor pulling a baler over an Amana Society cornfield that had been harvested two days earlier.

Behind Petersen's tractor, a baler collected the corn stover that had already been mechanically raked, formed the stover into square bales, then tied them and dumped them out the back.

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