Fascination with Miscanthus

As an ornamental grass or as a highly sustainable second-generation bioenergy crop, Miscanthus is a most interesting grass. It is more closely related to sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) than any other genus. It can be crossed with sugarcane. It is far more cold tolerant than sugarcane. Much as switchgrass has been touted as a low-input, high-output energy crop in the U.S., Miscanthus has gained a similar reputation in Europe. Research on Miscanthus at the University of Illinois suggests that this crop has an excellent energy crop profile with low input requirements, high output potential, and the ability to improve the condition of the soil over time. Thus, my fascination with Miscanthus.

Just to get an idea of the wide variability that exists in this genus, just as an ornamental, here is a small sampling of Miscanthus ornamental varieties, that I found on the Internet: Adagio, Andante, Arabesque, Autumn Light, Ben Graz, Ben Rotkoph, Bitsy Ben, Blondo, Blütenwunder, Cabaret, Cosmopolitan, Emerald Giant, Gold Bar, Goliath, Gracillimus, Graziella, Hinjo, Huron Sunrise, Juli, Kirk Alexander, Kleine Fontäne, Little Kitten, Little Zebra, Malepartus, Morning Light, Mt. Washington, Nippon, November Sunset, Pünktchen, Rigoletto, Rotsilber, Sarabande, Silberfeder, Silberspinne, Sirene, Strictus, Super Stripe, Variegatus, Yaku Jima, and Zebrinus. One European webpage lists over 200 Miscanthus varieties.

Brazil sugarcane in the news

Anyone who tracks sugarcane production and is interested in biofuels produced from sugarcane is well aware that Brazil is the leader of the pack. It was reported at Bloomberg that Brazil is projected to turn a record 58% of this year's cane crop into ethanol, representing 24.3 billion liters (6.4 billion gallons) this year compared to 20.3 billion liters last year. While the best market for Brazilian-produced ethanol is Brazil, Antonio Padua, technical director at Unica, pointed out that rising ethanol prices in the U.S., the world's biggest consumer of the fuel, will encourage Brazilian mills to export more this year. According to Padua, the current price of about $2.70 per gallon is above the $2.50 that makes exports to the U.S. profitable for Brazilian mills.

Also, recently in the news was a report of a joint venture between Amyris (Emeryville, CA), a leading innovator of next-generation renewable fuels, and Crystalsev, one of Brazil's largest ethanol distributors and marketers, to commercialize advanced renewable fuels made from sugarcane including a diesel, jet fuel and gasoline. Quoting variously from the article, "The first product, a renewable diesel that works in today's engines, is targeted for commercialization in 2010. Santelisa Vale, the second largest ethanol and sugar producer in Brazil and majority owner of Crystalsev, has contracted to provide two million tons of sugarcane crushing capacity and plans to adopt the new technology beginning at its flagship mill - Santelisa. Unlike current biofuels, these renewable fuels are designed to meet or exceed the quality of existing petroleum fuels and be fully compatible with existing fuels infrastructure and engines." This will be interesting to follow.

Bonne Terre Garden Fair

This coming weekend, the third annual Bonne Terre Garden Fair will be held at the historic Southdown Plantation in Houma Lawn and garden enthusiasts will be showing off their plants, vendors will be selling their lawn/garden-related merchandise, and experts will educating us. I enjoy lawns and gardens, so I expect that's where I will most likely be, this coming weekend. The LSU AgCenter is responsible for the program.

As is illustrated in LSU's Vegetable Planting Guide, gardening is done a rather differently down here from what I was used to, growing up in the intermountain west at 6,800 ft elevation where it wasn't that uncommon for fences to disappear from the depth of the snowpack in the winter. Here, there are fall planted winter crops (cabbage, lettuce, onions, peas, potatoes, etc.), winter-planted spring crops (vegetables that most folks would plant in the early spring (beets, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, etc.), and spring-planted summer crops (beans, corn, eggplant, melons, okra, peppers, squash, tomatoes, etc.). While I was weeding in the garden, Judy grabbed a camera. You can see that the spring-planted crops are progressing well...and so are the weeds.

New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival

Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest are two major events in New Orleans that to a great degree, define the city. According to the official Jazz Fest website, "The Festival celebrates the indigenous music and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana, so the music encompasses every style associated with the city and the state: blues, R&B, gospel music, Cajun music, zydeco, Afro-Caribbean, folk music, Latin, rock, rap music, country music, bluegrass, and everything in between. And of course there is lots of jazz, both contemporary and traditional." Jazz Fest kicks off tomorrow, Friday (Apr 25), continuing on Sat (Apr 26), Sun (Apr 27), Thu (May 1), Fri (May 2), Sat (May 3), and Sun (May 4). The likes of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, Timmy Graw, the Neville Brothers, Santana, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall, Keyshia Cole, Ellis Costello, Allen Toussaint and other artists will be featured. There are 11 stages/tents of various sizes set up at the Festival, the two big stages being the Acura Stage and the Gentilly Stage. Music will be played simultaneously at the various stages/tents, as shown under Music Schedule at the official website. I told the Idaho musicians that it's a shame they would be missing this, and they agreed...it would have been nice to have experienced a part of Jazz Fest. You can experience enough to whet your appetite by clicking on some of the previews of recordings from past Jazz Fests.

For those who didn't know...

My wife, Judy, is an artist...and not just a good artist. She is a very good artist. While we still lived in Hawaii, and while I was working for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association or HSPA (now the Hawaiian Agricultural Research Center or HARC), she created these two paintings that presently hang in my office. People who walk into my office and see the painting of sugarcane tasseling in the Maunawili Valley on Oahu, are amazed when I tell them they are looking at a painting and not a picture. For those with Google Earth, to see the location that inspired the painting, cut & paste coordinates: 21 20 50 N 157 46 08 W into the search box. The cane fire painting was created from a photo taken at Oahu Sugar Company during a controlled sugarcane burn just prior to harvest. Judy's signature is visible at the lower left corner of both paintings. Judy has several other paintings, some that have been given away to family, at school reunions, etc. I think you would agree that, had she pursued it, she could have made a living being an artist.

Cane Tassels at Sunset

I took these photos of sugarcane in a flowering mode at our breeding station in Houma in the late fall timeframe, not all in the same year. I tried to make one of them a little bit artsy. If you have a strong preference for any one of them in particular, let me know. Flowering is not a desirable trait to the grower, but is essential to the breeder in order to make crosses and start the arduous task of identifying superior progeny.

Crawfish boil with BYU-Idaho group

Great food. Great music. Great time together.

Katie Bodily, a ward member who is moving back to Utah soon, had a video camera at the event and took some footage that she posted at her blogsite. It isn't high quality, but it's ok. She posted the stills and videos the day of the Thibodaux Ward Crawfish Boil, on April 19, 2008. We had about 50 students from BYU-Idaho. They had a blast. I'm posting some of the better pics I took. Mine were either too light or too dark, because I didn't know what I was doing. Judy did her best to make them respectable, afterward.

Raising cane in Louisiana

Sometimes when people ask me what I have done for a living, I tell them I started earning enough money to live on as a graduate assistant breeding a better malting barley for the beer industry, then I moved on to "raising cane," and on the side "growing grass." Hmmm...maybe a little explanation is then in order.

Here's a video we show at our research station. It's a bit dated, since the harvesting system has largely changed from soldier harvesters that lay whole stalks in a heap row, to a combine harvester that cuts the cane into 8" pieces, and drops them directly into a wagon that travels alongside the harvester. The video, as seen online, is in two segments, Raising cane in Louisiana - Part 1, and Part 2. Enjoy, if you have the interest. It lasts about 12 minutes in total.

Sugarcane bagasse turned into Hallmark cards

An employee at our workplace brought a Hallmark card that she bought from Wal-Mart. No big deal, until she showed us it was made out of sugarcane bagasse (the fibrous residue left after squeezing the juice out of the sugarcane stalks to make sugar). So I checked it out at the Hallmark newsroom. Sure enough, Hallmark has an "earth friendly" line of greeting cards. Where does Hallmark get its paper? Perhaps The Sugarcane Paper Company, Inc. in Panama City, FL. Perhaps somewhere else.

Bagasse has many uses. Bagasse is the primary fuel source at most sugarcane mills. It produces enough heat energy to supply the needs of the mill, and, in some cases, electricity is sold to the public, such as at Florida Crystals’ Okeelanta Cogeneration Plant. It has been used in the building industry as an ingredient in particle board, acoustic tiles, etc. With molasses added, it has also been used as a bulking agent in animal feed. It has also been used as an ingredient in compost for landscaping. While living in Hawaii, I used it as a compost ingredient when I was commercially growing "organic" turfgrass sod on black plastic. Enter the keywords "bagasse biodegradable" into a search engine and you'll be amazed at the range of products that can be purchased that are made out of bagasse.

BYU-Idaho Symphony Band performing in Louisiana

Tomorrow night on the 14th, the BYU-Idaho Symphony Band will be performing in our back yard, at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, about 30 minutes drive north of Houma. They will also be performing in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, during their tour. How did they end up coming to Thibodaux? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that their director, Diane Soelberg, was a former member of our ward in the 1980's. I was told at church today that she was sorely missed when she left, because of her piano playing skills. It so happens that Thibodaux Ward's annual crawfish boil will be this coming Saturday, the same day that the band members are scheduled to perform in New Orleans. They have accepted our invitation to participate, so we will have approximately 50 additional people at our crawfish boil this year. I can't wait to see them rolling up their sleeves and tackling a heaping plate of crawfish (generic link to get the idea). I'll be sure to send some pictures of the experience. A cajun band will be providing live music for all to enjoy, so the symphony members will get the whole cajun experience. It should be fun!

The biofuels debate

An increasing number of articles have recently been critical of biofuels. Two that reached wide audiences are in National Geographic and Time. Both were highly critical of corn-based ethanol in the U. S., but viewed sugarcane-based ethanol in Brazil in a much more positive light. Corn is criticized because, as a major food and feed crop, diversion of the grain toward the production of ethanol has the effect of driving up food prices. Also, the energy balance (output to input ratio) is not that attractive (Nat’l Geog.: 1.3 to 1.0). By contrast, the energy balance for sugarcane, at least in Brazil, was cited as 8 to 1. This begs the question as to why sugarcane is not used for ethanol production in the U.S. If the energy balance for sugarcane were only half as good as in Brazil (4 to 1) this is still much better than for corn. If the energetics really do favor sugarcane, why can ethanol be profitably made from corn, but not from sugarcane? I put together some numbers, based on what I found on the Internet, to compare the sugarcane situation in Brazil and the U.S.

Another connection

The name, Tew, originates from England. My great grandfather, Thomas Tew, Jr., was the first of my direct Tew line to arrive in the U.S. The family of Thomas Tew, Sr. investigated the LDS (Mormon) Church. As teenagers and now converts to a new religion, both Thomas Tew, Jr. and his close friend Walter Bird, were sent to Utah ahead of their respective families. They were given enough money to buy steerage passage on a ship from England that arrived at the Port of New Orleans in 1850. From there, they went up the Mississippi River to St. Louis. They got work driving ox teams to the west. At the time, they knew nothing about oxen, or how to set ox bows on them to team them up to pull wagons. Obviously, over the next several weeks, they became well acquainted with oxen. They fared pretty well until they got into mountainous country, where Thomas came down with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. He became completely helpless. The wagon master told the group to leave Thomas behind for dead, but Walter sneaked his lifeless-looking body into a wagon, covering him up, and he eventually revived. Thomas owed his life to Walter. Shortly after their arrival in Salt Lake City, they were sent 50 miles south into the Utah Valley where they settled in what is now the Springville-Mapleton area. Their respective families soon followed. Thomas eventually married Walter’s sister, Rebecca Bird. As the best of friends for life, it is fitting that Walter and Thomas were buried next to each other in the Evergreen Cemetery that borders Springville and Mapleton. And now, 140 years later, the name, Thomas Tew, has come full circle, with myself returning to within an hour’s drive of the New Orleans and the Mississippi River. Every time I fly from N.O. to S.L.C., I can’t help but think about the stark contrast between my short flight and the arduous journey taken by my great grandfather. Picture taken in the late 1800's, is of Thomas Tew, Jr. (sitting, 1833-1904), with his sons, John Henry (center, 1868-1948) and my grandfather William Thomas (right, 1859-1933).

French Connection

To live in southern Louisiana is to be immersed in French culture. As in Hawaii, where the locals sprinkle their everyday vocabulary with Hawaiian words, Louisiana has a strong french connection, and their everyday conversations strongly reflect this. Counties are called parishes. It isn't unusual to hear people refer to the size of their property in arpents instead of acres. Specific laws also reflect Louisiana's French roots. For example, the principle of "forced heirship"—that a child is legally guaranteed a share of his parents' estate—comes from the Napoleonic Code and does not appear on the books in any of the 49 common-law states. Similarly, some laws governing commercial transactions in Louisiana come from the French system, putting them at odds with the parts of the Uniform Commercial Code used by other states.

My french connection, albeit weak, is my middle name, LeRoy (the king), which I can trace back through my mother (maiden name, Mary LeRoy), through three additional generations, Ammon Alexander LeRoy (GF), Daniel Vestor LeRoy (GGF), and Louis Roy (GGGF), who settled in Missouri presumably (though not positively verified) from Quebec, Canada.