Breeding of maize and sunflower with improved quality for biogas production

In future biomass will play a major role in the overall energy mix. Because of this fact particularly the production of biomethane will be of main interest in Germany. The basis for utilization of biomass is the energy yield that can be achieved per unit area. In addition to a high dry matter yield the composition of the fermentation substrate is of fundamental importance for the digestion process and for obtaining a high economic efficiency of the biogas plant and accordingly a competitive price level on the market.

The main objective of this project is to develop a basis for achieving more, in biogas plants convertible energy, per unit area. Therefore it is necessary to gain knowledge about the kinetic and genetic of fat accumulation in the oil plant sunflower and the starch plant maize.

A second objective is to assess the option of breeding sunflowers with reduced whole plant ash and crude fiber contents and in this way to advance the plant quality.

Due to the fact that actual formulas based on the substrate composition are not satisfying yet for estimating the methane yield of complex substrates, it is still necessary to use time consuming laboratory methods. For this reason correction factors for these formulas should be determined in this project.