Three farm energy demonstration units have been established by Masstock, the smart farming advisory business, to provide farmers with ‘reliable information and advice’ on every aspect of energy crop production and use.
Masstock, who have been at the forefront of specialist farming developments for many years, already have 30 all-farming demonstration units across the UK. Their three new locations, however, announced at Cereals 2011, are their first in the energy sector.
Based at Drax in Yorkshire, Market Drayton in Shropshire and Cirencester in the Cotswolds, the new units will focus on short rotation coppice, miscanthus, combinable crop straws, maize, grass silage and other energy crops, as well as the use of livestock wastes.
“With FiTs, RHIs and other opportunities, farm energy is at a hugely exciting, but rapidly changing, stage in its development,” said David Neale, Masstock business development manager. “What farmers need more than anything else is good, reliable information and advice on the practicality of the opportunities available and how best to integrate them with existing enterprises for greatest value at least risk.”
When asked by GEN to justify his ‘practicality’ claim, Mr Neale said that a good demonstration example would to look at UK-grown maize crops to indentify the most energy productive, rather than merely ‘importing’ varieties which happened to perform well in Germany.
He also promised a new approach to miscanthus production, a crop which has been around for a long time without really achieving its potential.
An interview with Keith Wilson of International Energy Crops, Masstock’s research and development partner for miscanthus, will be published later this month.
