Breeding For Biogas

KWS has also firmly nailed its flag to the burgeoning EU biogas industry mast. Its view is that as land resources become more finite that energy output/ha will be the key.

Its bio-energy specialist, Andreas von Felde points out that biogas plants are already providing 4-5 times more energy per ha than is possible from rapeseed biodiesel production. And at the same time, using maize for biogas produces 4-5 times less CO2 emissions than bio-ethanol derived from wheat.

As a result,KWS is leading the breeding world with dedicated plant breeding programmes looking at crops and varieties that produce high power outputs.

Alongside sugar beet and sunflower, maize is a key crop in a biogas crop rotation. “We believe biogas production is sustainable and so we are investing several million Euros every year in developing more suitable plant material,” says Andreas.

Maize provides some of the highest sources of dry matter/ha as a food source for biogas production. “We are achieving up to 30t/ha DM from the crop significantly more than standard forage maize crops,” he points out.

KWS breeders are working on gigantic, South American material with delayed flowering that produces very high yields and aims to be able to use them to provide 10,000 cubic metres of methane/ha.