Energy plants-mixed Silphie: bee pasture and corn replacement

Corn was grown at around 2.5 million hectares last year, around a third of them for biogas production. Corn monocultures have long been criticized. However, corn could soon be replaced by the mixed Silphie.

Because the plant up to three meters high can root the floor two meters deep, it consumes significantly less water. It forms more biomass and humus and creates optimal conditions for earthworms. With its yellow flowers and lush green leaves, the Silphie of the Jerusalem artichoke is similar, which can also become up to three meters high. It blooms from July to October and attracts numerous bees, butterflies and other insects. Without chemical treatment, numerous co -herbs thrive that enrich the biodiversity.

The first year remains largely without yield, since the plant on the field must first establish itself, but it is all the more profitable in the following years. In a combination of corn and Silphie in the first year of cultivation, the Silphie culture grows under the corn stock, which starts after the corn harvest. Silphie is also fed to farm animals, with the valuable green goods being mixed in a dried form to the main feed.

Biogas and peat replacement

Mais brings higher yields, but the bottom line is more elaborate and cost -intensive, because it has to be sown every year, mechanically edited and treated. In principle, the silhie yields can keep up with conventional biogass substrates such as corn, manure, green waste or other agricultural residues.

Silphie grows on the same field for 15 to 25 years after sowing.

Silphie substrates could also be used in the garden in the future. With its good water-hold capacity and fiber stability, the plant meets all the requirements as a peat replacement. According to the Federal Government, Torf is to be largely replaced as a garden substrate by 2030. Because for the breakdown, climate protection -relevant bogs are irreversibly destroyed.

More popular with insects

If it initially causes comparatively high costs, Silphie pays off over a longer period of time. As a plant of several years, it grows on the same field for 15 to 25 years after sowing, whereby it can be harvested again every year. The floor only has to be edited once before sowing. Compared to corn, Silphie delivers around 30 percent less biogas. In order to create the same energy content, more space has to be planted with Silphie. When insect -friendly flowering plants grow on it as then herbs, bees, butterflies and small animals benefit.

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On the northern Frankenalb, a region with more than 50 biogas plants, there are the largest groundwater reserves that can be used as drinking water. Because of the intensive corn cultivation, the water is heavily contaminated with nitrate and pesticides, at the same time the floors erode. From 2017 to 2024, the government of Upper Franconia carried out cultivated attempts with Silphie to around 100 hectares. One result was that significantly more types and insects settled on the Silphie parcels than in adjacent corn and grain areas.

Use in paper production

The Outnature company also produces silhie paper, which currently consists of 50 percent of Silphie fiber and 50 percent of classic cellulat. The Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Security and Energy Technology (prudence) examined as part of a Ecological cycle assessment study The environmental impact of silhie paper and compared this to those bleached by paper from paper or unbleached pulp. In terms of quality, both types of paper do not differ from each other, both can be processed and printed on packaging. Silphie paper is also suitable for packaging with direct food contact. Papers and cardboard based on Silphie fibers can also be processed into new paper via the recycling cycle. In the production of both materials, part of the biomass is used energetically for biogas production.