1-16: Superior Dedicated Herbaceous Energy Crop Varieties

Ceres used to be a straight-ahead functional genomics company, and the greenhouses were full of transgenic Arabidopsis and rice plants.  However, Ceres has now metamorphosed into a comprehensive seed business, complete with traditional and marker-assisted breeding facilities and capabilities, a talented agronomy team that covers relevant areas of the USA, an extensive field-trialing network, seed production acres, and a sales and marketing force.  Using the Blade brand name (www.bladeenergy.com), we are now marketing seed for superior varieties of both switchgrass and high biomass sorghum for the 2009 planting season.  These varieties are targeted specifically for use in biomass conversion processes.  This talk will highlight why these varieties are better suited for bioenergy purposes than what has been previously available, and why these factors are important to farmers and biomass processors.