Agrivida launches field trials to test modified corn stover

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Kris Bevill
June 13, 2012

Massachusetts-based Agrivida Inc. is conducting the first year of USDA-permitted field trials to grow corn that has been engineered to include enzymes in the corn stalk. The addition should lower the cost of cellulosic ethanol production, according to Agrivida. The company has been developing molecular engineering technology to add enzymes to energy crops for several years and has advanced the technology to a stage which promises to deliver feedstocks with high yields and low external input requirements, according to Jeremy Johnson, co-founder and vice president of Agrivida. Small test plots of the modified corn were planted this spring in Indiana and Iowa to further evaluate the product. The number of acres planted this year is less than 100 acres, but the company intends to increase the size of its field trials over the next few years. Johnson estimates the product could be available for commercial use in four to five years.

Agrivida’s trademarked INzyme technology, previously known as GreenGenes, allows the company to engineer corn seed that contains enzymes which will grow in the stover only. The enzymes essentially lie dormant throughout the growing cycle, leaving the corn itself unaffected, and are activated only after being subjected to heat of less than 100 degrees Celsius at the processing plant. “That is a temperature that you would not see in nature, but it’s relatively low for a chemical process, so there’s considerable cost advantages of using that low of a temperature,” Johnson said. The company has also tested its technology on switchgrass and sorghum successfully in the greenhouse, but does not yet plan to conduct field trials with those feedstocks.

Read more