Russia plans to start massive cultivation of silk grass, with the aim of its further use as a raw material for the production of pulp.
It is planned, a pilot project will be implemented in the Russian Tula region on the basis of the "Center of Competence and Sustainable Development in the Field of Agroindustrial and Food Security and Environmental Protection".
As Mikhail Budenkov, chairman of the Russian Center for Environmental Policy and Culture and one of the initiators of the project told in an interview with the Russian RG business paper silk grass is a perennial herb of the cereal family, an analogue of reed. It can grow on low-fertile soils, fallow lands and inconveniences. In addition, this crop may withstand drought and frost resistance, being capable of preventing erosion processes.
Its main advantages are high content of pulp, hemicellulose, lignin and low moisture content of raw materials. Ecologists are interested in this reed mainly as a substitute for wood in the production of paper. In Russia, two varieties have been bred that can grow in the middle zone: "Saranovsky" (bred in the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and "Kamis", the design of which is the Kaluga scientist Sergey Voinsky.
Complete processing and use of silk grass allows, to refuse from the use of plastic dishes and cocktail tubes, and replace plastic packaging with paper. Moreover, the production of cellulose from this crop is two times cheaper than from the classic non-woody plant species - flax and hemp
By: Eugen Gerden.