NexSteppe Vision
Be a leading provider of scalable, reliable and
sustainable feedstock solutions for the biofuels, biopower and biobased product industries
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Our Products
Biobased Products &
Advanced Biofuels
Sweet Sorghum Fermentable Sugars
Biomass Sorghum Biomass
Biopower &
Cellulosic Biofuels
Palo Alto in Brazil
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• Annual crop • 120 day cycle • Low moisture at harvest • Can be grown: – During sugarcane renewal period to
provide biomass in March and April – As a Safrinha crop for mills that need
more biomass to meet contract obligations
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Why a Dedicated Crop?
• Reliable, scalable supply
• Production cost, not volatile market price
• Reduced transport distance
• Better biomass quality
Why Sorghum? • For the grower…
– High-yielding – Harvest in 3-4 months – Can be rotated with other crops – Established agronomic systems
• For the processor/project developer… – Drop-in – Broad geographic adaptation – Heat and drought tolerant
• For the seed company… – Huge genetic diversity – Rapid breeding and product development cycle – Fast scale-up – Established hybrid systems – Seed propagated
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The Pipeline
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>15,000 lines screened;
hundreds of breeding
populations created
>4000 lines selected from
breeding populations and in development
>2,500 hybrids in screening
trials
>100 hybrids in registration
18 hybrids commercialized
Our Technology Platform
Germplasm & Breeding
Chemistry & Composition
Unique knowledge of impact of composition on downstream processing and resulting ability to develop process-optimized products
Industry leading diversity and quality of germplasm collection
Proprietary data management system linking information and providing insight to breeding program
World-class marker-assisted breeding program to enhance product improvement efficiency
Agronomy
NexSys
Focus on developing optimized crop management practices
Genetic Markers
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