by Kelly Moffitt (St. Louis Public Radio) … Toni Kutchan, Vice President for Research at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, said that sorghum, Camelina sativa and pennycress are non-agricultural crops that researchers are harvesting for oil and biomass to use for fuel.
Pennycress, for example, is a “weed” that Missourians can find growing road-side. Jerry Steiner is the CEO of Arvegenix, a local company leading the development of Pennycress oil for use in biodiesel fuel. He said that plants like pennycress can fill a void left by the promise of ethanol.
Pennycress could be planted in fields between the harvest of soybeans and corn.
“We’re not taking away land that can be used for food production but we produce a cover crop that holds and protects the soil and at the same time a feedstock that can have a better than 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction in the forms of renewable diesel or renewable jet fuel,” Steiner said. READ MORE includes AUDIO