Staples was included in a campaign swing through central Minnesota last week by Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the DFL’s endorsed candidate for governor. She stopped at the Central Lakes Ag Center, where Bob Schafer showed her examples of crops the center has been planting in hopes of finding crops for biofuels or for production of ethanol or diesel fuel. (Staples World photo) DFL-endorsed candidate for governor Margaret Anderson Kelliher on June 10 stopped in Staples while on a rural economics tour of the state.

Kelliher, who faces an August primary challenge from two other DFL’ers, spent time at the Central Lakes Ag Center, learning how the center is growing several potential crops for use as a biomass fuel source for the production of either diesel fuel or ethanol.

Kelliher listened and asked questions as Bob Schafer, CLAC director, took her and others on a tour of CLAC plots where they are growing switchgrass, prairie cordgrass, miscanthus, camelina, sweet sorghum and other potential energy crops. He explained problems encountered with the various crops, while also noting their potential for use as an energy source.

At the end of her tour, Schafer and others opened up the long moth-balled ethanol plant housed in a quonset building at the ag center, noting that this was one of the first ethanol plants to produce marketable ethanol in Minnesota.

“We need a governor who can lead Minnesota into a clean energy future,” Kelliher said following her tour. She noted that places such as the CLAC have the knowledge, experience and equipment to lead the way. “This is the answer to an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico,” she added.

Her stop in Staples was on the second day of a two day tour. Earlier stops included Alexandria, Morris and Moorhead, with a stop at the Little Falls ethanol plant following her visit in Staples. Along the way, she spent time and visited with small business owners, students and instructors at higher education and research institutions and local and regional agriculture leaders.

Schafer explained that CLAC is in the process of growing crops that can be used to produce oil for diesel fuel, with plans to use that fuel in machinery in the Central Lakes Heavy Equipment classes and in the Ag Center’s farm tractors.

Camolina, a non-food oil seed crop, is one possibility for producing diesel fuel. They currently have a plot planted just off the end of the Staples Airport’s runway. When Schafer showed that small plot to Kelliher, he said they planted in last year and have applied no fertilizer and it is not irrigated. Yet it has thrived. “We can’t believe how thick this is. We would have been thrilled to have a ton per acre, but it’s going to be even more than that.”

The Central Lakes Ag Center, using nine different plots, some of them on other farms around the area, is trying to determine the best methods and rates of planting the various crops, the fertilizer needs of each one and many other unknowns. They obtained some miscanthus seeds but were unsure if this grass could survive the winters. “We were told it is not a winter hardy plant,” Schafer said. But they planted a small plot and not only did it survive, they estimate it could produce 10 tons per acre of a biomass fuel. That is when planted on marginal land, Schafer added.

They are also growing several varieties of sweet sorghum at the Staples experiment farm, with hopes that sorghum could be used to replace corn in ethanol production. “We tested eight varieties and have found we could produce 380 gallons of ethanol per acre,” Schafer said.