Grower are Testing Straw to Determine if Fuel can be Made
Oregon’s field burning in the Willamette Valley may be reduced by using grass seed straw for the production of ethanol. Representatives of the Oregon Seed Council and Lane County Board of Commissioners are asking to Oregon Department of Agriculture for a $250,000 grant to fund a study that will focus on this very issue.
By using grass seed straw to produce ethanol growers could reduce field burning to every other year instead of every year. Grass seed producers have to pay to register for burning their field and the money they pay to register would go to fund this testing as well.
If approved the project could start in as little as six weeks. And if the study showed there is potential there would be a demonstration project to follow.
Field burning accounts for less than 2 precent of the total carbon emissions in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Grass seed producers once burned more than 250,000 acres of stubble annually, but for more than a decade the total allowable acreage has been capped by the state at about 65,000 acres, with about 50,000 acres actually burned each year.
There are about 1,400 grass seed growers in Oregon alone. Oregon farms generate more than 775 million pounds of gress seed annually as well. And framers will have to increase their use of herbicides and pesticides and could create more dust due to the need to work up fields more extensively. (Source: Albany Democrat-Herald in Oregon)
*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Seek out reclaimed wood furniture. I once found an old ship deck door and transformed it into a table top with the help of my husband and his wonderfull work-working tools and ability. Anything can be reclaimed or repurposed if you use a little imagination and the ability to see the bigger picture of things instead of what they were in the first place.
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