Middlebury College
IN-1: Innovation 1

Middlebury College is working with State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry to test the feasibility of growing willow shrubs on Middlebury College land for use in the College's biomass gasification plant. The 10-acre test plot was started in 2007 and will be cut for a test burn in January 2011. Five varieties of willows were field planted by machine to represent a mass planting. Thirty other varieties were hand planted in a grid to allow for more controlled study. Researchers are doing soil and water tests in the hand-planted plots and are applying measured amounts of compost, cow manure, and fertilizers to test the results against a control plot. Middlebury faculty and students conducted a summer long study of bird and small mammal diversity in the willows compared to other surrounding habitat types. All of this research will help Middlebury decide which varieties of willow could be planted in the future. This project is aimed at reducing overall carbon emissions by the College, growing a renewable fuel source close to the campus, and finding ways to do so ecologically and that cause more carbon sequestration in the soil.