URBANA, Ill. — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate student Michael Vincent manned an informational booth at the recent Farm Progress Show in Decatur, where he and other researchers displayed several towering examples of tropical maize grown at university test plots.

The height and girth of some hybrid varieties of the plants helps to produce an unusually high fermentable sugar content found in the plants’ stalks, U of I researchers say. The high sugar content makes the plant ideal for processing into ethanol, heat and electricity, in addition to animal feed.

About 10 contracted Illinois growers are collaborating with the U of I Crop Sciences Department to raise test plots of tropical maize hybrids, which can grow as tall as 14 feet, according to Vincent.

“We’re trying to find out where (tropical maize) fits in, to determine which genetics work for which areas and how to manage the crop,” he said of the project, launched around three years prior. “If the stalk sugar ethanol (aspect) takes off, we have hybrids and management schemes for that. If grain and stover takes off, we also have hybrids and management schemes for that.

“On the animal side, we’re trying to find hybrids that have the yield and nutritional value suitable for (ruminants).”

Vincent and his fellow researchers are hoping more farmers will come aboard during the next growing season and volunteer to commit more than the 30 acres for which producers signed up this year.

“We’re trying to increase seed supplies right now and we’re hoping our cooperative farmers will be back. We’re trying to get more co-op farmers next year, in addition to more campus research,” he said.

Aside from producing more stalk sugar for ethanol and other energy purposes, researchers tout maize for its minimal reliance on nitrogen fertilizers. “All of the tropical maize hybrids I work with are later-maturing than conventional corn. Some produce very little grain, but (large) deposits of sugar in the stalk. Other hybrids will produce both grain and large amounts of stover or stalk material,” said Vincent.

“That is where our greatest interest is at this time, to raise the crop for grain, harvest the grain for normal purposes and then bale the stover to generate heat and electricity.”

Maize could be harvested and transported to grain elevators that could process the grain in the same manner as conventional corn, Vincent said. “For stover, (producers) would have to be located near a power plant or an industry that burns something for heat, or to be used to generate electricity,” he added.

As for the co-product of maize’s use as livestock feed, “It’s comparable to conventional corn. We’re looking at different angles from making silage out of it to grazing it.”

During Vincent’s presentation on maize’s possibilities for producers at Farm Progress, interest was high from the “younger generation” of students and farmers seeking information about the bioenergy industry, he said. The possibilities of animal forage, stalk sugar for ethanol and dual-purpose stover for heat and electricity drew nearly equal interest from those who stopped by the U of I booth.

On Sept. 9, the Schetter Farm south of Brighton in Jersey County hosted a Tropical Maize-Bioenergy Crop Field Day and Plot Tour, which drew farmers and researchers interested in supporting renewable biomass crops for power generation facilities, and other groundbreaking sources of heat and power systems across the Midwest. In order to develop producer and end-user projects in biomass, the USDA and other agencies have launched the Biomass Crop Assistance Program.

The initial stages of U of I maize research will continue to refine the plant’s characteristics and help define the best crop candidates for regional production. Interested producers may contact Vincent at 217-244-1287 or via email at vincent@illinois.edu