That’s a big pile of corn cobs. It’s just one of many that POET has made during all their research and testing ways to make ethanol out of them. One thing I can tell you is that farmers need some equipment to handle this leftover product of harvesting grain.
That’s why there are several farm equipment manufacturers working with POET on corn cob harvesting solutions. One of them is John Deere. Of the current options for harvesting/collecting the cobs, Deere is working on the corn cob mix kit (CCM) option. It’s basically an attachment to the combine according to John Deere’s Barry Nelson, who was attending the POET Project LIBERTY field day.
Barry says that this will allow farmers to produce up to 11 percent more ethanol per acre. That’s a pretty good gain in efficiency. He says they’re also looking at other equipment options including a special cart or new combine.
You can listen to my interview with Barry here: poet-liberty-08-nelson.mp3
You can also download the interview with this link (mp3).