H L Wilson Farms, a large and respected UK farming machinery contractor and latterly Europe’s biggest miscanthus rhizome farmer, has stepped in to support the future growth of miscanthus farming in Europe.
"Over the last year we became increasingly dissatisfied with the widespread poor quality of miscanthus planting and the business practices prevalent in the sector", said Keith Wilson, manager of the business’s farming operations. "We’ve invested £5million in rhizome multiplication and the decision was taken in September to sever our supply contracts with Bical, before it went into administration." H L Wilson farms 820ha in Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Shropshire and in northern France and its machinery and expertise were used to harvest the large majority of 2009 miscanthus in the UK.
Most recent development for the H L Wilson business was to form International Energy Crops Ltd (IEC) with a mission to ’Bring Precision Planting to Miscanthus’. IEC is led by Nick Pascoe, a Yorkshire engineer with European experience of biomass power projects and who was recently head of energy for Tesco PLC. "Over the next three years we’re making the biggest investment miscanthus has yet seen. We’re investing £8million heavily in rhizome lifting and planting, delivering precision planting at 70cm spacings. Our focus will be on fresh, energetic certificated rhizome, as opposed to cold-stored material, so we can guarantee germination on good soils, leading to high yield crops."
The company’s aim is that by spring 2012 it will deliver 20,000ha per annum planting in the UK and Europe using techniques that avoid the need for costly patch planting.
Spring 2010 is IEC’s immediate priority and company agronomists are appealing to farmers that have applied for the Energy Crop Scheme (ECS) to book a farm / soils review as early as possible to ensure their planting goes ahead. The government’s Renewable Energy Strategy sets out how the UK will meet the commitment under the Renewable Energy Directive to achieve 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) believes that around 30% of the renewable energy target could come from biomass heat and power, and a successful Energy Crops Scheme has a vital role to play as part of the feedstock mix.
The Renewable Energy Strategy assumes that energy crop production in the UK could be increased to help meet this need for biomass. To help encourage this, the government is seeking EC approval to increase the establishment grant for the Energy Crops Scheme from 40% to 50% of actual costs. This is expected to be applied to all plantings of perennial energy crops made after January 1, 2010.
"The UK’s major power generators have repeatedly expressed their desire for the energy crops sector to expand quickly, explains Mr Pascoe. It is known that one significant Yorkshire-based generator could take one million tonnes per annum of pelleted miscanthus if it were available. Power generators large and small across the UK are at various stages of trials and burning miscanthus-derived fuel bales, briquettes, cubes and pellets, incentivised by the extra 0.5 ROC / MWh (Renewable Energy Certificates) they receive when burning an energy crop fuel.
