The first commercial harvest of a plant once called “stinkweed” took place in a Mapleton field Friday, with supporters now referring to it as “wonderfuel.”
The weed in question is pennycress, a member of the mustard family with seeds that contain 36 percent oil - twice as much as soybeans. That much oil makes pennycress the perfect crop to blend with diesel fuel to make biodiesel, said officials of Biofuels Manufacturers of Illinois, LLC, a firm that plans to build a plant on the Mapleton site that is expected to produce 60 million gallons of biodiesel a year.
“No other sustainable energy crop has the potential that pennycress has,” said Sudhir Seth, president and CEO of BMI.
“This is a crop that does not obstruct the food chain. It has an estimated value of $125 to $175 per acre for farmers and we’re able to convert 80 percent of the plant to energy. In the long term, we anticipate pennycress will become a top biofuel source for biodiesel production,” said Seth.
“Pennycress is planted in the fall and harvested in the spring using traditional farm equipment,” he said.
