Looking all over the southern side of Texas for cheap land.

Tried partnering up with land owner's. Not much interest there, unfortunately.

Tried talking to the city manager of corpus christi, scheduled a meeting, which he ducked out of, waited an hour and 20 minutes only to find out he'd skipped out somewhere. Left a decently put together business plan for him to read at his leisure, havent heard a word back from the city at this point.

Guess I have to concede they have no interest at all.

You'd think with the depressed economy, housing starts in the dumps, that the prices of land would be coming down? nope, still over 10K per acre in places i wouldnt pay 10 bucks an acre for.

I'll keep looking, getting so bummed about it though HA!

I read in biodiesel magazine the other day that Valero was closing 2 refineries up north since there is a shortage of available oil to process into fuel. And that the ME isnt going to increase output to help drive up the prices. Also that consumers couldnt stand much of a fuel price increase since the economy is still in the dumps.

you'd think with all of that going on, that someone would take a gamble or more of a gamble on biodiesel. there's even less interest than before.

More airlines are testing biofuel blends, everything seems to be pointing toward a greener choice (at least to me) and the public interest in it is dismal.

another oil crunch of the 70's is about what it would take to wake most people up i suppose.

hate to see it happen though. kind of funny watching 8 out of 10 vehicles pass by and its a huge honking SUV with 1 person in it, speeding, getting 7MPG (joke).

I dont know what it means but here it is. I have about 100 seeds of the "supposed" non-toxic variety of jatropha curcas.

I planted 20. they are shorter, paler in color, dont grow as fast (initial observations).

i brought one up to work (air conditioned, the windows are tinted) and set it by the door.

along with 3 "toxic" plants (jc again),

now the non toxic variety is just as dark in color as the others. watering once every 2 weeks perhaps. but it looks a LOT healthier and has more leaves and they're getting bigger.

perhaps a more cold tolerant variety?

one can only wonder.

I have about 65 trees going now, they are doing very well with the daily watering.

Also, check out my brother's new restaurant in Wicsonsin.

theboneyardtexaspitbbq.com

Tell yer friends about it if they are close by. its amazing Texas Bar B Que, toned down just a little for the yanks. :)

Hi everyone,

sorry for the delay in posting, I've been job hunting. I've planted another round of seeds. So I am up above 100 seedlings again. Preparing for the move to Tyler hopefully. I'll have 2 acres to grow on up there exclusively for jatropha curcas.

I spoke with a fellow IT type in the Rio Grande Valley and he has 25 acres. He is very receptive to the idea of planting about 5-8 acres of jatropha there. Its fairly exicting as the drive from Corpus isnt too bad, but the drive from Tyler would be a nightmare. He's also a pilot and has his own plane and runway so I dont know, maybe we can work something out about coming down to manage the orchard and save on all of the driving.

I am very anxious to get back up to Tyler though and see how the test plants are doing with the terra preta. They should be huge by now (hoping).

anyhow, I am also growing jalapenos, bell peppers, miniature bell peppers, corn and watermelon (just a few of each). My brother has opened a Bar B Que restaurant in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin and needs a supply of jalapenos for an appetizer he's created. Marinated chicken breast, wrapped in a half of a jalapeno, wrapped in bacon, roasted over a grill (Texas Style). So Im hoping to grow those for him too. Since peppers were the first item I wanted to grow in the first place.

Doing both would be incredible.

more seeds planted. I've taken some seedlings to Tyler, Tx. and planted them there.

3 of them had been planted in pots with terra preta. after only 2 weeks, the lower half of the soil I used to plant the jatropha curcas in, was pure black as if the terra preta had converted the rest of the soil into terra preta.

I think the plants in Tyler are going to do extremely well for the summer and fall. I hope they survive the winter. I'll be planting a lot of other stuff there as well,

raspberries, bell peppers, miniature bell peppers, roses, blackberries (already planted), grapes, probably some corn, watermelons, jalapenos and even more types of fruits, veggies, berries and such.

in the meanwhile, I've a nice little handful of jatropha curcas still growing in corpus, and I'll plant some more as well.

most of the people I've spoken with in the past about biofuels have lost contact lately, so I guess Im just growing it for fun now, without a care towards becoming a business.

c 'est la vie!

well, last years seeds are still germinating at a very acceptable rate. 14 seeds planted, 8 has come up so far. A few days left and I think a few more will come up.

So, I'll be taking about 20 seedlings up to east Texas, around Tyler, I've access to almost 23 acres of land there. I plan on transferring the seedlings to the land, and just letting them go all summer, fall and winter. I may get to get up to check on them occasionally, but I plan on letting them ride out the winter. If any survive, we just might have a cold weather strain.

Here's hoping they all make it, :D

For those of you who've asked where to get seeds in the U.S.

My first purchase was from Cary at lakebiofuels.com

the guy has thousands and thousands of seeds available. you can buy in bulk too.

if your ambition is a bit smaller, echonet.org out of florida will sell you a pack of about 13 seeds for I think $5.00. not bad to just check things out.

and I've had 95% germination with both varieties of seeds from these guys.

echonet.org also donates some percentage of the proceeds to charities, I dont know which.

Nope, still dont have any land, but i planted 14 more jatropha curcas (staying small) of the seeds I had such great sucess with last year. Planted in a mixture of topsoil/sand 50/50, and THIS time, I got to use TERRA PRETA in the soil. So we'll see how that goes.

I planted 13 in regular 1 gallon planters, and 1 in a very large planter. I guess it'd be a 30 gallon one. Maybe it will not sense the confinement and grow faster and bigger. Again, we'll see.

For those tracking this, I have 8 seedlings of the non-toxic variety growing out of 21 planted. After 2 weeks of daily watering, thats less than 50% germination, while last year I was enjoying 95% or better germination of the toxic variety.

It will be interesting to see how 1 year old seeds do. Im hoping still for at least 90% germination.

I've been invited to do a phone interview by Nate at Biodieselnow. Not sure when or how it will be published but I am sure you will be able to find it at www.biodieselnow.com

Feel free also to go there and check out the forums, there is a lot of talk about algae, solar, wind, geothermal and almost every other type of alternative energy out there.

and the new crop is coming along slowly. Not planting with any speed this season as I still have no land to work on. So, just doing it at a slow pace. I've got a few up and growing now. planted 19, same process as before, water every day until they sprout, then 2 - 3 times per week afterwards.

Next group i'll try out the little sample of terra preta i have and see if they catch and pass the ones i have  growing now. should be an interesting experiment.

Well, due to domestic issues, I've lost the 400 plants I started off with in 2008.

So, starting anew, Picking up 100 planters and a few bags of topsoil today to plant 100 seeds.

I think I'll buy just 100 planters and soil per 2 weeks to get back where I was before in preparation for obtaining some land and transferring the seedlings there.

Still very exciting to start again. I'll keep up the blog at least as well as I did before and perhaps a bit better, especially if I come across some land.

Here's hoping.