Ceres Launches Biofuel Seed Firm Blade Energy Crops

Posted by Matt Hopkins|13 May 2008

US-based Ceres, Inc. will market its agricultural seeds and traits under the name Blade Energy Crops in the US, the company said in a release. Company president and CEO Richard Hamilton unveiled the new brand at the BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology in Chicago, Illinois, US.

“Blade will be the first multi-crop seed brand supplying the new market for non-food, low-carbon biofuel feedstocks,” Hamilton said. The biomass-dense crops will be grown as raw materials for next-generation biofuels. “Supported by the latest technology in genomics-based breeding, trait development, and compositional analysis, we are positioning Blade as a premium seed brand for biofuel and biopower feedstocks. For growers, that means high yields and greater yield stability. Downstream, it means easier processing, and ultimately, more energy per ton of biomass,” Hamilton added.

Seed supplies of the first products to be sold under the Blade name are currently being multiplied for Spring 2009 sowing. These include the nation’s first switchgrass cultivars developed specifically for biofuels — EG 1101 and EG 1102 — as well as high-biomass sorghum.

Ceres vice president of commercial development Anna Rath says the company is “working with biorefineries to set up feedstock supplies, offering support in crop selection and agronomy as well as the opportunity for an assured supply of seed.” Due to their high yields, energy crops can produce more fuel per-acre than first-generation biofuel crops, and further mitigate greenhouse gas emissions since these new crops require fewer inputs and actually build new topsoil, the company states, noting that ethanol made from switchgrass produces 90% less greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum, and nets nearly five times more energy than starch-based ethanol.