Experts also found that corn plants near the hotspots were growing much slower than usual.
Some Iowa corn plants were only 4 to 5 feet tall with thin stalks and small ears.
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - The most extensive drought in five decades has left corn plants withered and dying, and crop yields in the largest producing states will be much lower than experts have forecast, scouts said on Friday as they completed a U.S. Midwest crop tour.
Another is to convert the waste material from corn ethanol plants into oil that can be used to make biodiesel.
Another goal, kick-started by a grant from British Petroleum, is to create bacteria that can efficiently turn corn and other plants into bio-fuels.
Called C4 plants because they utilize a molecule with four carbons, plants that use this evolutionary trick include sugar cane, corn and other tropical plants.
WSJ: Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide
Another goal, kick-started by a grant from British Petroleum (nyse: BP - news - people ), is to create bacteria that can efficiently turn corn and other plants into bio-fuels.
Crop plants like corn and tobacco can now be programmed with gene-splicing techniques to produce precious pharmaceuticals.
In the process, germs would be souped up to make ethanol, biobutanol or other fuels from plants like corn.
In recent years, scientists have sequenced the genetic code of a wide array of organisms, ranging from mice, humans and fish to common bacterial pathogens and plants like rice and corn.
All you do is cluster the corn-oil units around biodiesel plants that use another money-saving GreenShift innovation: a "continuous base catalyst reaction" system that relies on a "proprietary process intensification and advanced separation technologies"--whatever those are.
Late Wednesday, Heartland Ethanol, a Tennessee-based company, scrapped plans to build seven ethanol plants in Illinois, citing high corn prices.
Five years ago he uprooted his tomato, cabbage and onion plants to make room for baby corn seedlings - a crop he had never seen and equally would not eat - but with an export market secured, and his income guaranteed, he felt he had everything to gain.
BBC: NEWS | Business | African trade fears carbon footprint backlash
But rosy predictions of ethanol's viability often ignore the volatility in the price of corn and natural gas, which fuels most ethanol plants.
An index of stories about genetically engineered plants and animals, including Aventis' StarLink corn.
Most of the corn no longer goes to farm kitchens but to ethanol plants as monumental as the federal subsidies they burn.
The appealing idea is that native plants like switchgrass and agricultural leftovers like wheat straw and corn stover could be turned into ethanol.
This type of ethanol refers to fuel made from waste, wood, plants and other products, as opposed to the now widely produced corn ethanol.
Choosing plants with no food value sidesteps one of the biggest criticisms of another synthetic fuel, corn ethanol, because critics say that corn should be used as food, not fuel.
The appealing idea is that plants native to the U.S., like switchgrass, and agricultural leftovers like wheat straw and corn stover could be turned into ethanol.
The Colombian Coffee Federation said its country's high-end growers have begun planting corn and other crops as a way of diversifying incomes, and that most have been reinvesting by replacing old coffee plants with newer, more productive ones.
应用推荐