“Team converts sugarcane to a cold-tolerant, oil-producing crop”

If the researchers achieve their goal, growers will be able to meet 147 percent of the U.S. mandate for renewable fuels by growing the modified sugarcane on abandoned land in the southeastern United States (about 20 percent of the green zone on the map)

 

http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/0224sugarcane_StephenLong.html

A multi-institutional team reports that it can increase sugarcane’s geographic range, boost its photosynthetic rate by 30 percent and turn it into an oil-producing crop for biodiesel production.

These are only the first steps in a bigger initiative that will turn sugarcane and sorghum – two of the most productive crop plants known – into even more productive, oil-generating plants.