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For some additional critical context here, switchgrass can be grown in "marginal" soil that is too salty or otherwise can't handle food crops well. In this case

For some additional critical context here, switchgrass can be grown in "marginal" soil that is too salty or otherwise can't handle food crops well. In this case it really doesn't need to be a trade-off, and we've known that for decades too. It barely even needs fertilizer because it contains little nitrogen. Thus, this simply isn't surprising, we should obviously do this if cellulosic ethanol works well enough now.

bumby 3y ago
Yes, there's other comments here addressing the marginal soil aspect. My understanding is that marginal soil that is used for agriculture is generally used for cattle grazing. So I'm not sure that there's a free lunch here. People aren't generally buying plots of marginal soil for agricultural purposes, but maybe this changes that.
- neltnerb 3y ago
  I'm out of the loop, I don't know much about grazing pastures. But some grasses, grown intentionally, grow extremely fast (giganteus miscanthus was the big one at the time I was researching actively). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus_%C3%97_giganteus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus_%C3%97_giganteus I'm certain there are better ones now, this is very dated information about the details. But from the Wikipedia there's some exciting stuff to me: "Miscanthus is unusually efficient at turning solar radiation into biomass, and its water use efficiency is among the highest of any crop. It has twice the water use efficiency of its fellow C4 plant maize, twice the efficiency as the C3 energy crop willow (Salix viminalis), and four times the efficiency as the C3 plant wheat." and check out just how tolerant this species is -- "Miscanthus × giganteus is either moderately or highly tolerant of heat, drought, flooding, salinity (below 100 mM), and cool soil temperatures (down to −3.4°C, or 25°F). This robustness makes it possible to establish relatively high-yielding miscanthus fields on marginal land, for instance in coastal areas, damp habitats, grasslands, abandoned milling sites, forest edges, streamsides, foothills and mountain slopes. 99% of Europe's saline, marginal lands can be used for M. × giganteus plantations, with only an expected maximum yield loss of 11%." It's pretty amazing, and is already grown for fuels according to the wikipedia page so it's not like it's a novel concept.

bumby 3y ago

Yes, there's other comments here addressing the marginal soil aspect. My understanding is that marginal soil that is used for agriculture is generally used for cattle grazing. So I'm not sure that there's a free lunch here. People aren't generally buying plots of marginal soil for agricultural purposes, but maybe this changes that.

neltnerb 3y ago
I'm out of the loop, I don't know much about grazing pastures. But some grasses, grown intentionally, grow extremely fast (giganteus miscanthus was the big one at the time I was researching actively). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus_%C3%97_giganteus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus_%C3%97_giganteus I'm certain there are better ones now, this is very dated information about the details. But from the Wikipedia there's some exciting stuff to me: "Miscanthus is unusually efficient at turning solar radiation into biomass, and its water use efficiency is among the highest of any crop. It has twice the water use efficiency of its fellow C4 plant maize, twice the efficiency as the C3 energy crop willow (Salix viminalis), and four times the efficiency as the C3 plant wheat." and check out just how tolerant this species is -- "Miscanthus × giganteus is either moderately or highly tolerant of heat, drought, flooding, salinity (below 100 mM), and cool soil temperatures (down to −3.4°C, or 25°F). This robustness makes it possible to establish relatively high-yielding miscanthus fields on marginal land, for instance in coastal areas, damp habitats, grasslands, abandoned milling sites, forest edges, streamsides, foothills and mountain slopes. 99% of Europe's saline, marginal lands can be used for M. × giganteus plantations, with only an expected maximum yield loss of 11%." It's pretty amazing, and is already grown for fuels according to the wikipedia page so it's not like it's a novel concept.