Douglas Frederick

Western North Carolina represents an important opportunity to develop a cellulosic biofuels industry where significant portions of the feedstock portfolio are short rotation woody crops (SRWC), especially genetically improved clones of hybrid poplar and cottonwood. The western third of North Carolina has large acreage of marginal lands, much of which is in pasture or fallow fields. In addition, because of several factors including oversupply and competition from artificial trees, significant acreage of Fraser fir production is being abandoned adding land to the marginal lands base. Marginal and other non-food production lands have become a target nationally and in North Carolina for energy crop establishment including SRWCs as North Carolina, the nation, and the world attempt to develop a biofuels industry while avoiding the food versus fuels controversy perceived to have been created by the recent rapid expansion of the U.S. corn ethanol industry. Our research and extension team currently have hybrid poplar and cottonwood trials established in Scotland and Onslow Counties on waste treatment plants and we are currently establishing additional trials in Duplin and New Hanover Counties plus we are expanding our existing site trials. On these established and new trials we are assessing a variety of Populus clones and promising native tree species for survival, growth, and suitability for ethanol production as well as developing guidelines for establishing and management. We are also documenting disease and pest incidence and treatments where necessary, and we are documenting establishment and management costs. We are using a standardized statistical design on all sites to allow analysis across sites. We are proposing to establish two additional trials in western North Carolina where we will monitor growth, survival, and other parameters for two growing seasons. We have already gotten tentative approval to establish one of the trials at the Upper Mountains Research Station in Ashe County to assess higher elevation marginal lands (3,200 ft. MSL) and have current requests at sites representing lower elevations in western North Carolina that would be representative of lower elevation sites and western Piedmont sites. We will use the same research design as we are using in eastern North Carolina to allow analysis across all sites and development of a geographic growth model of Populus in North Carolina.

The recent free trade agreement with Chile creates new opportunities and challenges for the US forestry and environmental sectors. Relative to the southeastern US, Chile is highly competitive in the plantation forestry sector, faces many parallel environmental concerns, and serves as a laboratory for technical and policy responses to water scarcity. In the Department of Forestry at North Carolina State University, several faculty have strong research ties with the industrial forestry sector in Chile. We propose to expand on this existing research collaboration to address water and forest resources more broadly, to provide opportunities for students to gain international experience in Chile, and to disseminate findings from Chile through the university classroom, outreach activities, and continuing education. Our partners are two of the leading forestry universities in Chile, in Concepcion and Valdivia. This proposal has four key components. 1. Facilitate broader faculty and student involvement in Chile through training in Spanish, a website, a graduate student assistant, and visits by Chilean faculty; 2. Encourage faculty and student research and study in Chile through travel grants and a study tour; 3. Build on faculty sabbaticals in Chile by supporting student research assistants and development of long-term collaborative research projects; 4. Disseminate information from Chile through multiple channels to both university students and the public. Through this project, faculty will build their research programs, students will expand their international understanding, and the US private, government, and non-governmental sectors will learn both from Chile?s experience and about business opportunities in Chile.