It Just Keeps Getting Better In North Dakota -- April 28, 2015

Updates

August 26, 2015: reports of this carinata harvest coming in nicely in the Bakken area, of all places. 
 

Original Post

CBSLocal is reporting:

Western North Dakota farmers this year have agreed to plant 6,000 acres of a crop that can be made into jet fuel.

The farmers will be seeding carinata, a variety of mustard seed. Canadian seed producer Agrisoma Biosciences over the winter sought farmers to plant the crop. Spokesman Garret Groves said producers were quick to sign up and exceeded the 4,000-acre goal.
“We’ve had pretty good success,” he told The Bismarck Tribune.

Carinata looks similar to the oilseed canola, only a little bushier. It will be grown in fields near Mott, Carson, Tioga, Ray, Williston, Noonan and Flasher.

One potential customer for the crop is the U.S Navy, which is targeting carinata to help reach its goal of serving half of its energy needs with non-oil sources by 2020.

From wiki:

The flowers are very attractive to honey bees which collect both pollen and nectar.
This plant is also part of a research to develop an avation biofuel for jet engines. On October 29 of 2012, the first flight of a jet aircraft powered with 100 percent biofuel, made from brassica carinata, was completed.

From RD Magazine:

This new “kid” on the biofuel block taking root is the carinata seed. Carinata is a leafy plant originating in Ethiopia, also referred to as Ethiopian mustard and Abyssinian mustard, and produces oil seeds being used as a biofuel which mimics the attributes of its petroleum-derived counterpart.

To date, carinata has demonstrated agronomic success across sixty commercial sites and farms in the Canadian and U.S. prairies. Carinata is a non-food, energy feedstock crop which yields oil that can be refined into fuels that meet the specifications of petroleum-based fuels and work in ground and air transportation engines without engine modifications or blending.

Glad to see the US Navy has money to burn. Taxpayers won't mind. Certainly North Dakota farmers won't mind.