Bharat Renewable Energy, a partnership venture of the Indian government owned petroleum company, Bharat Petroleum, has initiated a plan with SG Biofuels (SGB) to grow and utilize a crossbreed variety of Jatropha in the manufacture of biodiesel in India.
Jatropha 2. Credit: SG Biofuels
The first phase of the program will venture to develop high potential hybrid Jatropha seeds that can get adapted to the distinct type of growing conditions prevailing all over the country. The other phases will attempt to deploy the JMax hybrid Jatropha seeds supplied by SGB in over 86,000 acres of land.
SGB will utilize the progress made in its crop development centers located worldwide where it is in the process of optimizing the select cross breeds of Jatropha for increased yield by utilizing a mix of biotechnology and molecular breeding techniques. The company has over 12,000 genotypes of hybrid Jatropha in its germplasm library. SGB will work along with BREL in selecting the right and high yielding and commercially productive breed of Jatropha from its JMax Jatropha Optimization Platform for growing the hybrid seed in suitable locations in India, which includes the initial deployment of 86,000 acres.
The Indian Government for the purpose of improving the biofuels usage has introduced a National Policy that encourages the use of biofuels with 20% mix of bioethanol and biodiesel in petroleum and diesel markets. The policy also specifies wastelands usage to cultivate non-edible oil seed plants such as Jatropha without impacting the food security of the country. A recent release from the Asian Development Bank stresses the need to increase the cultivation land area of Jatropha and other non-edible oils in India by 80 million acres to achieve the set biodiesel targets of the nation.