Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low carbon or carbon neutral alternatives to petroleum fuels. Long is an affiliate of the U. of I.'s Institute for Genomic Biology, and he also is the editor of Global Change Biology, which published his team's Miscanthus research in july 2008.
Corn, switchgrass and Miscanthus have been grown side by side in experimental plots in Urbana, Illinois since 2005 in the largest field trials of their kind in the United States. In field trials in Illinois, researchers grew Miscanthus and switchgrass in adjoining plots. Miscanthus proved to be at least twice as productive as switchgrass. In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.
Corn, switchgrass and Miscanthus have been grown side by side in experimental plots in Urbana, Illinois since 2005 in the largest field trials of their kind in the United States. In field trials in Illinois, researchers grew Miscanthus and switchgrass in adjoining plots. Miscanthus proved to be at least twice as productive as switchgrass. In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.
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