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Because commercial cultivation of Jatropha is so very recent there is still a lot be learnt as to how best it should be cultivated, and there is still a lot of potential to produce seeds with improved yields.
Improved yields
The jatropha currently being planted is from plants grown in the wild. They are giving handpicked yields of 10 tonnes of husked seeds per Ha from 2m high bushes. Viridas will allow their trees to grow to 5 meters and will mechanically pick. Future yields are expected to improve substantially through better agronomy, seed selection and breeding programmes.
In the thirty years from 1975 to 2004 Brazil increased it's Ethanol productivity per Ha by 109% The same improvements for jatropha would give potential yields per Ha of 3.4 tonnes Crude Jatropha Oil and 13.6 tonnes of Jatropha Bio-Mass. |
