The Herald-News - News Story

Harvesting fuel: Switchgrass farmers prepare fields for ethanol research facility

Clyde Thurman surveys his farm nowadays and sees what he calls a giant "research project" - lush greenery cloaks much of his rolling farmland, while tufts of grass poke through the cracked red earth in other areas.

The Spring City planter is in his second year of growing switchgrass as part of the University of Tennessee's Biofuels Initiative and is one of only two farmers in Rhea County to join the venture.

The UT initiative has contracted 37 private farms and about 2,000 acres in East Tennessee to grow switchgrass in 2009. This year's contracts were made public Tuesday.

Thurman's 76-acres of switchgrass is the third largest in the program.

The initiative began with the announcement that a biofuels refinery was being built in Monroe County.

According to UT's Web site, the plant will operate much like an oil refinery, except it will produce biofuels, including ethanol, instead of petroleum-based fuels like gasoline.

The purpose is to find more environmentally friendly fuels and to limit the nation's dependency on foreign oil, according to UT reports.

The biofuels plant is slated to open later this year.

Thurman used to watch green beans sprout from his land. And before that, cattle grazed his farm, so he admits he's still learning the ins-and-outs of growing the ethanol-producing plant.

"Right now it's all experimental," he said. "We're all just rookies in this thing."

UT Extension Agent Jerry Lamb said the program is concentrating on switchgrass to make ethanol because most of Tennessee doesn't have the right conditions to produce vast quantities of corn, the most popular crop for producing ethanol. In addition, switchgrass can grow on more adverse land.

Lamb said UT contracts farmers out at $500 per acre and provides all the needed seed, but each planter must take care of sewing the seeds, growing the seeds, weed control, soil tests and harvesting. After all that, the farmers' profits fall sharply.

"Those guys are making barely $100 an acre," Lamb said.

The benefit of getting involved in biofuels for farmers is that it gives them added job security at a time where subdivisions are gobbling up farmland, he said.

"If this can prevent that land from going into housing, I think it's a good thing," he said. "If you build a house on it, it'll never revert back to agriculture."

Most farmers are given three-year contracts for the perennial grass. UT experts said that the first year of growth usually offers about a 30 percent yield of the crop's capacity, while the second offers about a 70 percent yield. The third year should yield close to 100 percent of the crop's capacity, according to reports.

Thurman's experience thus far seems to back up those estimates. He said last year's crop yielded mixed results, and he had to reseed much of his acreage. This year, though, his grass is thriving, and he expects even more improvement in the third year.

"It's been a good year, this year," he said. "But next year I think will be the year. It takes it a while to get established."

Switchgrass can grow as high as 10-feet, according to UT. As Thurman traipsed through stalks of grass Thursday morning, some of his grass towered above his head and reached well above six feet tall.

Thurman said he sets seed in April and will harvest sometime in November, after a frost or two matures the plant.

Thurman got on board with the program because he wants to see the country do whatever it can to buck its addiction to foreign oil, he said. He added that he doesn't know if switchgrass and ethanol are the answer, but he hopes some kind of alternative sprouts.

"I hope it works for everybody's sake," he said.

If things go well with switchgrass and ethanol production, Thurman said he may continue selling the crop privately to the biofuels plant in Monroe County after the three-year trial with the University of Tennessee. But it's too early to tell right now, he said.

"We may be in the switchgrass business after three years, and we may not be," Thurman said. "This is no sure thing at all."

Michael Reneau can be contacted at michael.reneau@rheaheraldnews.com.