Developing Alternative Water Sources for Bioenergy Crop Production On Marginal Lands.

Meeting congressionally mandated Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS2) goal of using 36 billion gallons of bioenergy by 2022 requires a comprehensive regional strategy such as bringing addition area from different regions within the country under bioenergy crops. In the southwest U.S. region such as west Texas, bringing vast abandoned crop lands and areas having permeable soils under bioenergy crops can be a part of such a regional strategy. While the region has adequate supply of land, finding reliable source of water to produce bioenergy crops is the main challenge. This challenge can be met by developing marginal quality water sources such as blowdown water, treated urban wastewater, graywater, and saline groundwater for bioenergy crops production. Use of marginal quality waters to irrigate bioenergy crops may prove beneficial, if the bioenergy crops can grow under elevated salinity and the effects on soil and shallow groundwater can be minimized by appropriate management.This project evaluates the feasibility of using treated urban wastewater for producing select bioenergy crops (e.g., switchgrass, sorghum, castor, and jatropha) and its effects on soil salinity through a greenhouse column study.