(LaTrobe University) A cropping trial is now in the ground at Katunga as a forerunner to a $1 billion renewable fuel development. Investment company, AgBioEn, is planning a massive biofuel plant on a 40 ha former dairy farm, which will use agricultural waste.
The company is looking for ways of generating the bio-mass as an energy source and has struck up a partnership with La Trobe University to research ways of growing suitable crops.
La Trobe has established three trial plots of maize, with 16 soil sensors that measure soil moisture and temperature every half an hour.
The sensors transmit to a ‘gateway’ box in the corner of the paddock, which uploads the information, together with weather data, onto a computer cloud using the terrestrial communications network.
Soil sensors transmit real-time information on moisture and temperature.
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A new cropping trial with implications for annual cropping across northern Victoria has been set in motion on a small patch of ground at Katunga.
The trial, using a maize crop, will have outcomes of interest for the wider farming community that grows annual fodder crops for the dairy industry, but also for a billion-dollar alternative fuel development.
The investment company, AgBioEn, has commissioned the trial on a former dairy farm, next to the hydroponic tomato growing business, Katunga Fresh.
The biofuel project will need thousands of tonnes of biomass (or agricultural waste) to generate diesel and jet fuel.