Newswise — A species of clover that doesn’t typically perform well in the dry uplands of the Northern Plains could find its niche by helping producers grow biomass crops for energy in prairie lowlands.
South Dakota State University professor Vance Owens said that’s the point of a grant of just over $800,000 approved through the SDSU-based North Central Sun Grant Center to help scientists carry out research on kura clover. Owens is the principal investigator for the three-year project, which uses U.S. Department of Energy funds.
Owens said he and his colleagues will explore whether growing kura clover along with a high-yielding native grass called prairie cordgrass will supply some or all of the nitrogen needed to get high biomass yields.
Prairie cordgrass is a native species that is well adapted to lowland areas in the prairie, the same location where kura clover — a perennial known as Trifolium ambiguum to botanists — might prosper.
“Up to this point we haven’t done a lot with kura clover in South Dakota because it’s not particularly drought-hardy,” Owens said. “On the other hand, what’s neat about it is that it’s more tolerant of wet conditions than some of the other legumes.”
That makes it a good fit to try growing it with prairie cordgrass, which holds the promise of being able to produce close to 10 tons an acre of biomass in the low, moist conditions it prefers.
“Both prairie cordgrass and kura clover like to have their feet a little bit wet,” Owens said. “That allows us to have a legume in with the grass so that we can provide some of the nitrogen for the grass. Obviously one of the inputs we have in these grass systems is nitrogen. The native grasses to this point don’t require a lot of nitrogen, but they require some.”
Owens said the project will use stands of cordgrass alone as a control, and also will use different application rates of nitrogen to compare yields to cordgrass that is grown with kura clover. The study also will examine different ratios of kura clover to prairie cordgrass.
Researchers will determine whether growing kura clover with prairie cordgrass will supply all or part of the nitrogen the grass needs. Their work will give producers information about how much nitrogen they still might need to apply.
“This project is a great complement to our research portfolio on sustainable biomass feedstock production,” said Director Jim Doolittle of the North Central Sun Grant Center. “It will provide a ‘green’ nitrogen source for biomass production and improve the greenhouse gas status for lignocellulosic biofuel production.”
There’s a possibility that kura clover will offer the prairie cordgrass competition, Owens notes, although researchers hope it won’t be excessive.
Legumes such as kura clover have the ability to fix nitrogen, meaning they take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it to ammonia for use by the plant.
The study will use plots in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois to evaluate prairie cordgrass grown with kura clover across the entire region.
South Dakota State University has a separate study under way, also supported by the North Central Sun Grant Center, to map the genes of prairie cordgrass. That project is intended to help provide tools that scientists and plant breeders who work with prairie cordgrass, since it is an important native grass species under consideration as a feedstock to make cellulosic ethanol.
Owens said the Kura clover project is different in that it is aimed at helping the producers who will actually grow prairie cordgrass as the market for energy crops develops.
RSS