Qingwu Xue, Guojie Wang and Paul E. Nyren

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx. doi. org/10.5772/52917

1. Introduction

The development of biofuel is an important measure to meet America’s energy challenges in the future. In the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, the U. S. government mandates that 136 billion liters of biofuel will be produced by 2022, of which 60 billion liters will be cellulosic ethanol derived from biomass [1-3]. Currently, ethanol is one of the biofuels that has been developed extensively. In the U. S., initial efforts for ethanol production were focused on fermentation of sugars from grains (especially maize). However, there have been criticisms for ethanol production from maize because of low energy efficiency, high input cost and adverse environmental impacts [4-5]. Biofuels from biomass feedstocks are more attractive because biomass is a domestic, secure and abundant feedstock. There are at least three major benefits for using biofuels. The very first benefit is national energy security. To reduce the reliance of imported oil for transportation, alternative energy options must be developed. Economically, a biofuel industry would create jobs and ensure growing energy supplies to support national and global prosperity. Environmentally, producing and using more biofules will reduce CO2 emission and slow down the pace of global warming and climate change.

There are several sources of biomass feedstocks in forest and agricultural lands. The agricultural resources for biomass include annual crop residues, perennial crops, and miscellaneous process residues and manure [2, 3, 6]. Among the agricultural sources, the dedicated biofuel crops based on perennial species have been considered to the future of the biofuel industry and are the focus of intense research [2, 3, 6-8]. In addition, perennial biofuel crops also can provide other environmental and ecological benefits such as improving soil health, providing wild life habitat, increasing carbon sequestration, reducing soil erosion and enhancing water conservation [2, 9]. A key factor for meeting the government’s goal is the development of biomass feedstocks with high yield as well as ideal quality for conversion to liquid fuels and valuable chemicals [2-3, 6-8,10].

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The Northern Great Plains (NGP) of USA has been identified as an important area for biomass production. In particular, North Dakota is ranked first in potential for producing perennial grasses and other dedicated biofuel crops among the 50 states [10]. With about 1.2 million ha of CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) land and over 2.8 million ha of marginal land that are not suitable for cropping, the state has great potential for liquid biofuel production from biomass crops such as perennial grasses [11]. Before the great potential for biofuel production can be realized, questions still remain for developing management practices and their economic and environmental benefits for biofuel crops, such as appropriate species in certain areas, biomass yield potential and quality, harvesting scheduling (e. g., annual vs. biennial harvest), and effects on soil health and carbon sequestration.

In this paper, we review the current research progress for developing perennial biofuel crops in the NGP, primarily based on long-term field studies. We start to briefly discuss the species selections for biofuel crops in the USA and Europe. Then, we focus on development of crop management strategies for high yield as well as ideal quality. Finally, some possible environmental and ecological benefits from perennial biofuel crops are briefly discussed.