RIFLE, COLO. - A Garfield County ranch will be the site of a 2-year-long pilot study to see if dead, pine beetle-killed trees can be turned into a kind of fertilizer to help improve livestock grazing land.

The Flux Farm Foundation, Flying Dog Ranch near Carbondale, Aspen Valley Land Trust and Colorado State University are partners in the project, funded by a recent $50,000 grant from the state’s Advancing Colorado’s Renewable Energy (ACRE) program.

“We hear about things like carbon sequestration to help reduce emissions of carbon dioxide,” said Tom Lipetzky, markets division director at the Colorado Department of Agriculture. “This biochar project will take dead pine beetle-killed trees, superheat them and turn them into briquettes.”

The briquettes are broken up and applied like fertilizer to see how it impacts grass yield on pastures and the microbes in the soil, he added.

ACRE is administered by the Colorado Agricultural Value-Added Development Board, which encourages and promotes business projects that add value to agricultural products, as well as agricultural energy-related projects.

“ACRE is a statewide effort to promote energy-related projects beneficial to Colorado's agriculture industry,” Lipetzky said. “The grants awarded by this project are an important step toward helping our agriculture industry to be a leading participant in the new energy economy.”