A tie-up agency of the Philippines-Centro International de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) of Colombia has successfully bred three industrial-grade cassava varieties best used as ethanol feedstock owing to their high yield and high starch content essential for high alcohol recovery.

The Philippine Root Crops Research and Training Center (Philrootcrops) in Baybay City, Leyte whose breeding program has a collaboration with CIAT is promoting the use of these outstanding varieties for industrial use – NSIC (National Seed Industry Council) 2007 Cv-43, NSIC 2007 Cv-44, and NSIC 2007 Cv-45.

While there may be issues on the use of cassava for food, Philrootcrops said these cassava varieties can be grown in all regions of the country which must utilize many idle lands that are not yet used for food crops.

"Specific varieties are needed to provide raw materials for each demand in order to balance food and energy, (so we) recommend these high-yielding varieties with dry matter and starch contents suited for ethanol," said Algerico M. Mariscal of Philrootcrops in a Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) National Research Symposium proceeding.

Cassava may even be seen as an ideal ethanol feedstock considering that its used as a tuber for food is sometimes limited by its toxic content, cyaanogenic glycoside linamaarin or the cyanogenic glucosides which if present in sufficient quantities has been proven to cause acute cyanide poisoning and death in humans and animals.

CIAT in Cali, Colombia, a funded agency of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has enhanced the breeding program of PHilrootcrops and has provided high-yielding parental varieties suitable for ethanol use. CIAT also has an office in Thailand that maintains wide genetic materials of cassava for a region-wide breeding program in Asia.
The usual cassava breeding in the Philippines over the last 20 years has raised yield by only a modest increase from six metric tons (MT) per hectare in 1977 to nine MT per hectare in 1997.
However, Mariscal reported that one of the three outstanding varieties (earlier named OMR 40-40-03) for industrial use has been proven to give an average yield of 38.2 MT per hectare in 13 sites.

This also has a high dry matter content of 40 percent, 26.9 percent starch content. Dry matter and starch content are both needed in ethanol production. The second variety (named CMR 39-50-15) had an average yield of 32.2 MT per hectare in 14 trials, with dry matter content of 41.5 percent and 28.6 percent starch.