New Energy Farms develops energy capsules

June 20, 2012 – New Energy Farms (NEF) has developed a revolutionary new
method of propagating energy grasses; this will reduce farmer
establishment costs by 50% or more. Cost effective scaling of perennial
energy grasses such as Miscanthus, Arundo donax and Energy cane has
previously inhibited expansion.
 
NEF has addressed this problem
and developed a new planting product for vegetative energy crops, CEEDS (Crop Expansion Encapsulation & Drilling System).
These are small capsules that are established using automatic min till
or no till planters, like seed. The process applies to a number of
Energy grasses and is currently being evaluated by companies in the US
and Canada. The existing range of NEF energy crops will be available in
the CEEDS format commencing from 2013 to 2014 depending on the cultivar
and region.
 
The focus was to make establishing vegetative energy
crops as easy as other arable crops, to do this we started to look how
to reverse engineer a seed, and the result was CEEDS, Dean Tiessen,
President New Energy Farms.
 
CEEDS represents a step forward in
energy crop establishment; that has been many years in the development,
but solves all the issues that have previously made scaling energy crops
difficult. Dr Paul Carver, CEO New Energy Farms.
 
The CEEDS
planting system works alongside the NEF energy crop plantation
management  system, Biomass Direct to provide a farm to end user service
for our customers.
 
The main advantages of CEEDS are
 
•      New cultivars can be bulked up to market volumes 3 times faster.
•      Establishment cost for crops like Miscanthus can be reduced by over 50%.
•      Min / No till, fully automatic precision planting (no planting staff required).
•      Substantially lower cost of planting, less ground cultivation.
•      Reduction by up to 80% in transport logistics for planting material.
•      Greater vigor after planting, more shoots produced.
•      This system delivers the maximum yield from a cultivar.
•      Makes planting energy grasses as simple as drilling conventional arable crops.
 
For further details on this project or the products produced please email at
sales@newenergyfarms.com.
 
About NEF
 
NEF
supplies products and services to customers developing or operating
biomass conversion facilities. These customers are typically utility or
development companies who generate renewable electricity, heat, road
fuels or industrial materials, using plant biomass as raw material. The
crops supplied by NEF are energy crops; these have been specifically
developed to produce fuel and industrial products not food. They are
high yielding perennials; growing for over 10 years without replanting,
that produce large volumes of clean biomass feedstock with a low energy
and environmental footprint. The production of this feedstock can occur
on lower quality or surplus land and consequently does not impact on
food production.  Studies in the EU and US have identified over 30 m Ha
of land (75m Acres) is available for production of these crops without
influencing food production.