Genera’s proprietary Energy Grange™ management system, is designed to select the appropriate acreage, select the most economical crops for a project, contract the best seed, recruit and lease the land for increments of five to 10 years, and establish and manage high yielding crops, all of which aim to reduce price fluctuation and set long-term contracts with the conversion facility that removes the land and the crops from market fluctuations.
Energy Grange is a suite of services that focus on establishing and managing biomass feedstocks for end-use consumers. Genera’s Energy Grange system can create successful biomass production systems to fit any customer’s needs.
Landowner recruitment is critical to any successful biomass supply chain. Genera has developed an extensive set of tools and expertise that allow it to be the industry lead in land contracting. These tools include flexible contracts, leases, and other agreements for the production of biomass. Regardless of the landowner engagement model, Genera’s extensive on-the-ground experience in land and production contracting and contracting practices reduce risk associated with land control and long-term uncertainty in the biomass supply. Our practices have been developed through real-world experience, extensive R&D in the form of focus groups and pilot testing programs, and through work with our commercial customers.
Choosing the right feedstocks for a project is critical to success. Genera works with each customer to develop the tailored feedstock solution they require. It could be a single feedstock or a portfolio of feedstocks. Genera already holds key contracts and relationships with technology leaders, equipment suppliers, and offtake partners in the industry. For example, Genera has preferred supply and/or preferred pricing agreements with several of the leading crop biotech and genetics companies. Genera actively tests pre-commercial materials for these companies and develops cutting edge management strategies for new and improved crops. These relationships allow Genera to scale feedstocks very quickly and have early access to the most favorable feedstocks under development in the industry.
Once a feedstock or feedstock portfolio has been selected, successful crop establishment becomes the focus of any supply chain. Genera has extensive experience establishing a wide array of energy crops. From perennials like switchgrass, miscanthus, energy cane, and short-rotation woody crops to annuals like biomass sorghum, our field crews have developed optimized establishment systems for each crop. We focus on proper site preparation in advance of planting to ensure that the crops have the highest likelihood of success. Our team works with seeded, rhizomatous, and other vegetative means of propagation, and regardless of the planting method, our establishment success rates are the highest in the industry. Utilizing Genera’s Energy Grange management system for crop establishment will provide success for your project!
Once crops are established, either annual or perennial, maintenance of the crops becomes the key focus. Annual maintenance will include fertilization, weed control, and pest/disease monitoring. Depending on the crop, fertilization may be the only maintenance task necessary while on other crops, weed control will be critical.
Genera’s management focuses on actively planning the use of fertilizers, chemicals, equipment, and labor to maximize efficiencies across the entire feedstock production system. The large scale of this management system allows for bulk purchases of inputs at lower prices and increased efficiencies of equipment and labor. Precision management, on-time fertilization, and proper weed control will maximize yields and reduces costs in feedstock production.
Genera has the industry’s most comprehensive and mature approach to developing and implementing fully integrated feedstock supply solutions that are tailored to a particular location, conversion technology, and other project-specific details. Genera’s Energy Grange™ approach to managing large amounts of feedstock production acreage provides opportunities to significantly increase scale economies and management efficiencies while managing and reducing risk.
By Sam Jackson, Ph.D., VP of Business Development
