Farmer decides to grow his own biodiesel crop

By Jennifer M. Latzke

Luke Jaeger was fed up with high fuel prices.

A few years ago, as he sat at his desk in his home near Minneola, Kan., Jaeger decided fuel prices were crimping his bottom line and it was time for a different approach to filling his equipment tanks.

Jaeger went online and searched the Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension Service files, talked with seed salesmen and visited with biodiesel specialists to plan his farm-scale biodiesel facility. But it wasn't until the first seeds were planted that Jaeger's vision of energy independence began to take a definite shape.

Jaeger and his wife Darcy farm with his family in the Clark County area, raising a variety of row crops, including wheat and sorghum. When Jaeger found just how little of their acreage could be devoted to an oil crop production and still meet his farm's energy needs, he knew that it was time for action.

"Dryland farmers, in western Kansas, if they would just put 1 to 2 percent of their farm acres to winter canola or sunflowers, they would have enough acreage to get diesel fuel to run their farm for the whole year," Jaeger said. He planted 60 acres of winter canola because it holds moisture in the soil, similar to sorghum, and because it can protect soil from erosion at even the early stages in its growth cycle. Also, canola seeds have higher oil content, about 40 percent, than other oil crops like sunflowers or soybeans, Jaeger said.

The first crop

Jaeger purchased canola seed from a Nickerson, Kan., dealer and planted his first 60 acres last fall.

"We used the same equipment that we had on the farm, and planted the winter canola a day or two before wheat," he said. "We drilled it in, but we just had to be careful because of the seed's size." Experts from OSU advise winter canola can be planted six weeks before the first killing frost date in the area, or in the southern regions of Kansas about late August to early September. It's important that the crop have a level, but fairly firm seedbed with shallow soil moisture.

"We planted ours into no-till wheat stubble, and we made sure to plant it fairly shallow," Jaeger said. "We fertilized with 40 pounds of nitrogen and 30 pounds of phosphorous and that was it. We didn't have to add a lot of fertilizer or chemicals to get a crop." Ideally, a seeding rate of four to 10 pounds per acre will give the same yields as a sparser planting because the plants can branch out more and compensate for decreased seeding, according to OSU literature.

Canola is related to the mustard plant and so grows tall and bushy. Winter canola overwinters as a small rosette until early spring, when it begins to form buds. Flowering can continue for weeks, but the plant will only maintain the pods it can nourish at any time, so pod shatter can be a problem. Fortunately, weed management with canola is rarely an issue because it can out-compete most annuals with its own growth.

Harvest of winter canola usually comes around mid to late June. The Jaegers mowed their canola with a swather equipped with a draper header, designed to lay the crop down in the field, rather than crimping the plants like a normal swather would do. The windrows had to dry further before being harvested with a combine equipped with a pickup header.

"The pickup header is the one piece of equipment that we had to have that most farmers around here wouldn't have," Jaeger said. "It picks up the whole windrow." The pickup header is the same type used for millet in northern states.

It's at this stage that pod shattering can be a big problem for harvesters, according to OSU researchers. If the canola gets too dry, it can be affected by high winds, hail or even birds. Usually harvest is at about 8 to 10 percent seed moisture, with no visible green seeds.

Most importantly, for any first-time canola farmer, is the equipment check pre-planting and pre-harvest. Because canola seeds are so tiny, they can escape even the smallest of holes in equipment. The Jaegers had to go over each piece of planting, harvesting and hauling equipment to catch all the holes. "Pretty much, if it's water-tight, it'll hold canola," Jaeger said. Leaks were plugged using a welding compound or duct tape.

The agronomic sensibility of winter canola also fits into Jaeger's overall farm plan. The winter canola was drilled into wheat stalks and was then double-cropped to sorghum after harvest.

"The sorghum hasn't had much rain this July, but it's hanging in there with the moisture left in the ground," Jaeger said. "OSU did a study that shows a definite yield boost in wheat following winter canola in a rotation so it's not a harmful crop in a wheat rotation, but actually beneficial."

Next year the Jaegers plan to expand their winter canola production to 200 acres and to change some of their harvesting practices.

"It's just a learning process," Jaeger said. "I would probably swath it a little sooner, probably late May but next year it may ripen earlier or later. We took some pictures this year of the crop when we swathed it and we have an idea of what it should look like. I think it probably needs to have a fair amount of green to it when we swath it." This way, he explained, the crop can dry down in the windrow without so much pod shatter.

Growing a fuel crop

This first canola crop grew a little over 2,000 pounds per acre, Jaeger said. "I hope down the road we can get a better yield by doing a better, more timely job of harvest," he said.

The crop yielded about 43 to 44 percent oil, which comes to right about 123 gallons of biodiesel per acre--just enough to help the Jaegers on their farm next year.

But, growing his own oil crop was just the first step in Jaeger's plan. He also committed to building his own oil seed crushing and fuel refinery right there on his farm.

"We put in two 10-ton crushers, and the goal is to provide crushing for other area farmers who will grow winter canola or sunflowers and bring them to us to crush and then refine the oil into biodiesel," Jaeger said. "They can bring us their seeds and leave with biodiesel." The family is in the permitting phase of construction now and has joined the National Biodiesel Board. Eventually they will have all of the proper permits to process biodiesel and their product will meet American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards.

"We had to file for waste water permits, even though there's no waste water involved," Jaeger said. "In our dry wash refining method we use no ground water at all." He added this method is different compared to the refining of ethanol, which uses ground water.

"Refined biodiesel also has very minimal ecological hazards because it's basically vegetable oil," Jaeger said. "It's a natural product in the environment."

The Jaegers' crusher will operate, at full capacity, 24 hours a day, and use about four to six employees, which will help the nearby Minneola economy. In addition to building the oil crushing facility on their farm, the Jaegers have also built extra storage for their winter canola, and for their neighbors' future oil seed crops.

Jaeger said another benefit to processing his own biodiesel fuel are the tax credits available to him and his neighbors who join him.

"There are some tax credits through the federal and state governments," Jaeger said. "There's a $1 tax credit per gallon for producing renewable fuel from the federal government and a 10-cent per gallon tax credit through the state of Kansas."

But, most important, the Jaegers and their neighbors will benefit from the reduction in their fuel bills on their own farms and in the satisfaction of self-sustainability.

In the end, what started as an idea born out of frustration has turned out to be a stroke of inspiration for the Jaeger family and their neighbors.

Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com.

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8/20/07

Date: 8/16/07

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