Office of Environmental Sciences

Landowners, farmers or sportsmen who want to increase the value and benefits of the land they own, manage or hunt should attend the 2009 Agroforestry and Wildlife Field Day Sept.17 at the University of Georgia campus in Griffin, Ga.

Plastic fishing line may be useful for catching fish, but left in the water it can be deadly to turtles and other sea life. To encourage fishermen to recycle broken fishing line, 4-H’ers along Georgia’s coastline have installed used fishing line recycling collection bins.

When it comes to growing crops to make into biofuels, the talk usually centers on corn or switchgrass. But in the Southeast, the ornamental grass Miscanthus may outgrow them both.

Before the economic bust, farmers across the country expanded, said Tommie Shepherd, an agribusiness economist with the University of Georgia Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development. Unfortunately, “a cow’s not like a water faucet. You don’t just turn the spigot off,” he said.

Mark Risse has been named Georgia Power Company Professor of Water Resources Policy at the University of Georgia, according to Steve Wrigley, director of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, where the position is based.

Editor’s note: K.C. Das is an associate professor of engineering with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the director of the Biorefining and Carbon Cycling Program and manager of CAES biofuel research. The following is an abridged version of a Q&A on the status of bioenergy research in Georgia and its future. It originally appeared in the 2009 CAES Environmental Report magazine.