Rob:  The success of cellulosic energy production could well re-invent Oklahoma farm country.  I visited with some leading researchers to talk about the agronomics and the economics of switch grass.
Brian Motes:  It grows very aggressively, once it gets established.  And actually, not much that can compete with it, once it gets this size.
Rob:  Brian Motes is a forage specialist working on field plots of switch grass that someday soon the Noble Foundation hopes to release to area farmers to use for ethanol production, an ideal plant in large part, for its large size.
Motes:  Currently here, the first of May, it’s about knee-to-thigh-high, depending on where in the stand you are.  By September when it’s fully headed out, it could be up to seven or eight feet tall.
Rob:  Joe Bouton heads up the Noble Foundation’s forage improvement division, and hopes to do for switch grass, what the foundation has already done with a number of more traditional forages, develop breeds that are not just suitable for the area, but are profitable for local growers.
Joe Bouton:  When it was just a part of the range it was fine.  It is an integral part of our range, our native range, but now all of a sudden you can look at it as a crop.  And when you can look at it as a crop, then you can look at it in an economic sense; and then you can build a lot of things off of it, a whole economic model for a rural development program, if you will.
Rob:  That’s why scientists across the U S are racing to see who can develop a crop that will switch America’s bio fuel industry from corn-based ethanol to switch grass.  Burt English is with the University of Tennessee.
Burt English:  Switch grass is native to the United States.  It grows in place for 10 to 15 years. There is, without question, a niche for corn ethanol; but it won’t meet the total demands.  Our demand is growing, and it’s not shrinking.
Rob:  English is confident switch grass can fill that void, primarily because switch grass is a native grass across much of the south.
English:  You don't have to reseed it every year. You don't have to use the tractor in planting and cultivating.   After the first two years, you probably don't have to use any chemicals on the plant. 
Rob:  But developing switch grass as a cash crop still involves some challenges.  Does it replace established crops like wheat, or can it be raised on marginal land now used for grazing?
English: We're doing some weed experiments, and you need seed.   We need seed companies looking at this, and we need, also, plant improvement.  The more yield per acre, the more ethanol per acre.  And I think that’s going to be critical, in the long run, looking at the food versus fuel versus feed issue.
Rob:   And while researchers are confident the future of bio fuels lies in these fields, they know the economics of developing a sustainable bio fuels industry is still a ways away.
Bouton:  They’re going from a probably holistic, you know, more extensive type management system to a more intensive management system.  And it’s all about economics.  You know if they get a contract to grow switch grass, and they know it pays them so much a ton to produce it; then it’s just an economic model to how much do I put in to get that much tonnage, and then I’ll know what I’ll make off of it.
Rob:  Still, Bouton believes he’ll live to see the day processing plants dot the Oklahoma plains, turning grass into gas.
Bouton:  It’s getting the plants here, because if you get the plants, then they’ll give contracts to the farmers.  They can then put the inputs in and grow enough to satisfy the contract and make money hopefully.