News from the Midwest Sectional Meetings, March 16-18, 1998, Des Moines, Iowa
Contact:
David Hansen, Editor, University of Minnesota, (612)
625-7290
Alfalfa, Power and Protein
University of Minnesota dairy researchers confirmed that the edible product of Minnesota's unique alfalfa cooperative has a place in dairy herds. Alfalfa leaf meal (ALM) is a co-product in the separation of alfalfa leaves from stems. In recent feeding trials ALM was shown to be an acceptable and economical protein substitute for dehydrated alfalfa meal. ALM has half the protein of the dehydrated product and the modified diets compensated for this. Milk production and components of the milk were not affected by the change in diet. The study was conducted by animal scientists Matthew Jorgensen, Jean Marie Akayezu and James Linn,together with agronomist Hans Joachim Jung. The diets consisted of 17 percent alfalfa hay, 33 percent corn silage and 50 percent grain mix, which included the ALM.
The Minnesota Valley Alfalfa Producers cooperative is a farmer-owned group that leads the effort to develop a $200 million integrated alfalfa processing and biomass energy system near Granite Falls, Minnesota. It has over 500 members and expects to have about 2,000 when the alfalfa processing and electric generation facilities are operating.
The project moved a big step closer to reality this year when Northern States Power (NSP) signed a long-term contract, worth a half-billion dollars, to purchase electricity. The power plant will be the first of its kind in the U.S. and will produce energy from alfalfa, a renewable plant resource and cash crop.
Increased production of alfalfa will also reduce soil erosion and result in less fertilizer and pesticide use compared to the predominant corn and soybean crops of western Minnesota. Significant environmental benefits to soil, water and wildlife will result.
"This may be Minnesota's best example of sustainable development," says agronomist Ervin Oelke. "In terms of rural economic development," Oelke says, "it means long-term viability in an economic region of the state that's lost business and population in recent decades." Oelke is director of the Center for Alternative Plant and Animal Products, part of the University's College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences.
The project will create 1,000 construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs once the plant is operating. Minnesota Agri Power is a separate public-private partnership that will construct and operate the 75-megawatt power plant that will use efficient gasification technology to produce electricity from alfalfa.
A complicated project like this doesn't happen overnight. In 1993 NSP was looking for ideas to produce electrical power from biomass and contacted the University of Minnesota. Researchers proposed alfalfa as the renewable, biomass energy crop - the alfalfa stems to be used for electricity and the leaves processed for livestock feed.
About 50 researchers are now working on many aspects of this unique project, including breeding programs, storage and processing. A specific challenge is how to most efficiently separate the alfalfa leaves - for the protein supplement - from the stems needed for the power plant.
"This project represents the potential of public-private partnerships," says Oelke. The alfalfa processing and biomass energy system will be self- sustaining without on-going public subsidies.
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