The desert-adapted plant already grows across much of the Mountain West, including Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. Scientists say it could help farmers produce renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel while using significantly less water than traditional biofuel crops like corn and soybeans.
Over the next five years, researchers will test hundreds of cactus pear varieties at sites from Arizona to Florida. They’ll measure how much biomass each plant produces under different rainfall conditions and study its genetics and root microbes to better understand how it thrives with limited water.
Lead researcher John Cushman, a biochemistry and biotechnology professor at UNR, said expanding water-efficient crops is increasingly urgent.
“The water availability and usage for agriculture is really an important issue right now, and so it's very timely that the Department of Energy has invested in our project,” Cushman said.
Cushman added that the goal is to broaden where renewable fuel crops can grow.
“We want to scale up where we can plant this,” he said. “And being a desert-adapted plant, it can be grown in places where other biofuel feedstocks cannot be grown.”
If successful, cactus pear could become a next-generation biofuel crop, offering farmers in arid and semi-arid regions a new drought-resilient option as the climate continues to warm.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between KUNR, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
