Calvin H. Pearson

Native Grasses for Biomass Production at High Elevations

Herbaceous perennial grasses as lignocellulosic resources are a preferred feedstock source for biofuels because they have a neutral carbon budget, require few agronomic inputs, can be readily managed to be environmentally friendly, and have the potential to be grown on a variety of lands, soils, and crop production situations. The Mountain West at elevations of 1,200 m, and higher, typically have unique and variable conditions typified by dry climates, cold-season precipitation, cold winter temperatures, hot summers with cool nights, large areas of public land, long distances to markets, large variations in soil types, variable soil quality such as salinity, changing field topography, and other factors. Large regions of the Mountain West are dominated by cool-season grasses that could be a desirable source for biofuel production. Tall-statured, cool-season perennial grasses including basin wildrye, creeping x basin wildrye hybrids, intermediate wheatgrass, and tall wheatgrass are viable candidates for lignocellulosic biomass production in this region. Developing a locally grown biomass and biofuel products could provide economic diversification to rural communities in the Mountain West. Establishing a regional supply chain for biofuel production could diversify fuel sources and provide a degree of energy security. Cool-season biomass grasses are not currently cost-competitive with other biomass feedstocks or other Mountain West energy sources. Policies that encourage market development, energy diversification and security could jump-start the market for cool-season biomass grasses, although long-term market viability hinges on their production at competitive costs. Furthermore, commercial production of cool-season perennial grass species will require considerable genetic improvement to develop these plant species for suitable biomass production.

Response of seed yield and yield components in mixtures of dry edible bean

Studies regarding intergenotypic competition in cultivated crops are of interest for both scientific and practical reasons. The response patterns of seed yield in intergenotypic crop mixtures can be categorized into three types: neutral, overcompensatory, and undercompensatory. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the response of yield and yield components of dry edible bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) bi-blends (two-component blends) across five mixture ratios. Mixtures ratios for the components of the bi-blends were 0:100, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25, and 100:0. The responses of the bi-blends were tested by regression analysis in which the neutral, overcompensatory, and undercompensatory responses were evaluated for fit to the linear, positive quadratic and negative quadratic models, respectively. The first experiment used four bi-blends composed of indeterminate-vine cultivars which had pinto and great northern seed types. The second experiment utilized six bi-blends composed of lines with determinate-bush and indeterminate-vine growth habit. In that experiment, three of the bi-blends were composed of genetically related lines (near-isogenic) and three composed of unrelated lines. Inconsistent responses occured among the bi-blends for seed yield. Three of the four bi-blends with both components composed of vine growth habit fit a linear response model better than the quadratic model. The fourth bi-blend displayed an undercompensatory yield response. Five of the six bi-blends with components composed of bush and vine growth habit, also fit the linear model better than the quadratic model. The sixth bi-blend fit the undercompensatory quadratic model better than the linear model. Only one of the mixture levels in one bi-blend had a higher (P < 0.05) yield than the best component in the bi-blend. In general, most of the responses for yield components fit the linear model better than the quadratic model, however the responses were more erratic than seed yield. These results suggest that bi-blend mixtures of dry bean cultivars do not show overcompesatory response for yield or yield components, regardless of the growth habit or genetic diversity of the components. The failure to detect overcompensation in these studies may have been due to the lack of morphological and / or phenological differences in the components of the bi-blends used, since they were all from the same gene pool and center of species domestication. Future work on dry bean mixtures should use components which are derived from different gene pools to maximize differences in the components of the mixtures.

Standard Operating Protocol for Growing Transgenic Sunflower Plants in Contained Environments

Biotechnology provides the tools to develop industrial products for modern society that would not be possible in any other way (3). A biotechnological approach to improve sunflower was initiated in 2001 in a collaborative research project that involved genetic transformation of sunflower. Development of transgenic sunflowers creates concern about the possible flow of transgenes into wild sunflower populations, where these populations might be genetically altered in a detrimental way (2,8,10,12). Thus, pollen from transgenic sunflowers must be contained to prevent the hybridization of transgenic sunflower with wild sunflower. Concerns about biotechnology and gene flow from transgenic crops into their wild relatives have been studied and discussed by numerous researchers and organizations including Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (4), Daniell (5), Ellstrand et al. (7), Ellstand (6), and Wolfenbarger (13). The objective of this article is to present the standard operating protocol (SOP) we developed and have used for several years for growing transgenic sunflower plants in controlled, contained environments. This SOP may be of assistance to other researchers who work with transgenic plants when preparing their own SOP. A resource we found useful in developing our SOP was Adair et al. (1). Our SOP described in this article has been modified to include additional background information and descriptions of our operation to tailor it to the readership of this publication.