Growing biodiesel

[fuelfarmer]

Thought I would post a few photos of canola in bloom. I never get tired of look at the yellow fields. We will use the crop to produce biodiesel for our own farm.

[cognos]

What method do you use to get the oil? Do you just press, or do you use an extractive/solvent method?

[LowGear]

Yes, please educate us on your entire process.

Casey

[rcavictim]

Is that a Monsanto spy tower on the distant hilltop?  I wish that was funny.

[fuelfarmer]

We run a press to extract the oil. The oil is then processed into biodiesel.
A little more complicated than that, but not much.
A few clips..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BFuiFrK5C0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbECYEJWyoM

[fuelfarmer]

[Curbie]

fuelfarmer,

What part of the country you in or latitude if you prefer???

What type of yield (oil) per acre you getting for canola???

Why the choice of canola over other oil crops like sunflowers???

If the used for anything on the farm or is there a market for it???

Thanks,

Curbie

[fuelfarmer]

Curbie, We are in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The hardiness zone is a 6b I think
.
Canola has 2 gallons of oil per bushel and we can get yields of 60 bu. per acre in a good year. It is not possible to extract 100% of the oil with a press. 1 1/2 gallons per bu. is about what we get.

Winter canola works well because it can be planted in the fall and harvested soon enough in the spring to plant another crop. And canola is one of the highest oil yielding crops. We also plant soybeans for feed and oil.

Most of what we grow stays on the farm. The press cake is used to feed our dairy cows. Raw soybeans need to be processed with heat before they are used for feed. Running them through the press takes the place of flame roasting and we get the oil as a byproduct of making cow feed.

[veggie]

fuelfarmer,

Beautiful yellow fields ! (and I am green with envy) 

Here in Alberta, there are tens of thousands of acres dedicated to Canola growing.
I acquired a 2 tone press in order to make some oil from local grown seed.
Seeing your setup is very helpful. Thanks for posting it.

veggie

[Tim]

Feaulfarmer,

Nice going over there, I can see you're a good father, farmer, chemist and environmentalist as well.

Why don't you use the oil straight in the vehicles?

Tim

[cognos]

I would wager that the oil is processed into biodiesel for the following reasons:

1. Compatability with all types of diesel engines

2. Less requiremet for fuel preheat in warm months

3. Viscosity correction makes the product easier to filter and handle than raw oil

4. Raw oil will be "wet", BD processing eliminates water if done correctly

5. Consistent fuel quality.

Of course, I may be wrong entirely about fuelfarmer's rationale - I don't speak mean to speak for him here...

[Curbie]

Fuelfarmer,

1.5 (gal) x 60 (bu) = 90 (gal) x 2 (harvests per year) = ~180 gallons per acre per year

If you know, what hardness zone will canola go down to while still producing two harvests per year at roughly 1.5 gal per bushel??? That second harvest a year really bumps the yields.

How many inches per year of rainfall keeps canola happy???

Curbie

[fuelfarmer]

We started out blending veggie oil with diesel. That worked fine, but we have a ton of money invested in our equipment and it just seemed safer to make and run biodiesel. We still run oil in an old 2 stroke 6-71 Detroit. Nothing goes to waste as we recover methanol and add the glycerin back into the cow feed. We are after all primarily growing feed for livestock and the oil is almost a byproduct. A very desirable byproduct.

When I said second crop I should have said another crop like soybeans or corn. It gets to hot here to grow summer canola. Soybeans will produce about half the oil of canola, but they produce a lot more protein.

I don't know how much rain canola likes, or how cold it can get in the winter. I have heard that some drought stress at the correct time will cause canola to produce more oil.   

[Curbie]

Fuelfarmer,

I'm easily confused, do you grow 1 crop of canola per year, or 1 crop of canola & 1 crop of soybeans per year per (same) acre??? I'm trying to get at the total oil yield per acre per year, until now, I was under the impression that at our latitude, oil crops where about 100 gallons of vegetable oil per acre per year?

My data shows you get about 40" of rainfall per year; does that seem about right???

Curbie

[fuelfarmer]

We can get two crops per year from the same acre if the rotation is correct. With oil seed crops the second crop (soybeans) will grow late into the fall and prevent getting the fall seeded crop in soon enough. So you would get 3 crops every two years. I have read that canola should only be planted every 4 years on the same ground. It would be possible to get 90 to 100 gallons of canola oil and another 50 gallons of soybean oil in the same year if the weather was perfect. The second year there would be one crop harvested and a crop planted in early fall. More confusing???

The way I look at oil farming is it is not just about gallons of fuel per acre.  It is both fuel and feed at the same time. And oil seeds should be part of a good crop rotation.

40 inches is close to what we get.