Friday, July 13, 2007

Patented methods designed to greatly expand where sugarcane can be grown -- and what it produces.

...Until now, sugarcane could be grown only in tropical or sub-tropical climates like that of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Mirkov said.

"If we're going to use sugarcane to produce all the ethanol we need, we need to make it more water efficient to protect our water supplies," he said, "And we need to grow it in cooler parts of the state, say from Laredo to Corpus Christi. But we can only do that if sugarcane is cold- and drought-tolerant."

From AgNews (Go Aggies!)