Regardless of which plant starch is used for biofuel production
to generate energy, the process starts with the sun. For a
product that will be produced and sold, it’s all about
efficiency. How efficient is a particular plant at converting
sunlight to biomass, and how efficient can we be in converting
that biomass to usable forms of fuel? Switchgrass has been
considered a natural choice for this purpose because it is a
native perennial in prairie grasslands and a relatively large
producer of forage tonnage. Now, University of California--
Berkeley, researcher George Chuck and his team are about to kick
the biofuel choice of switchgrass up a notch. By transferring
the Cg1 corn gene into switchgrass, the team found, they could
triple the amount of starch that is stored in plant stems. This
makes it easier to convert starch into the sugars needed for
biofuel production. The result: Second-generation cellulosic
biofuels (fuel derived from nonfood crops) might be produced
cheaper and easier than fuel produced with