The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) may be best known for developing new fruit varieties and fighting pest and disease outbreaks. But behind the scenes, several new projects are working to "green" the campus by exploring sustainable energy alternatives.

On the Geneva campus, shrub willow is being tested as a renewable energy source. By next winter, two Field Research Unit buildings will be equipped with New York-made biomass boilers that will burn shrub willow wood chips, replacing natural gas with a renewable energy source that can be grown right on campus.

The willow will be harvested from horticulture associate professor Larry Smart's research and demonstration fields. The boilers are expected to consume the equivalent of five to six acres of willow per year, so a total of 15-20 acres of willow is being planted to allow three years for regrowth between harvests. The plantings will showcase willow's yield capacity and sustainable management practices for the new willow varieties bred in Smart's program.

"In addition to heating two buildings, the project demonstrates the feasibility of producing on-farm renewable heat from shrub willow, which can be grown on marginal land not suitable for other crops," explained Smart.

Switchgrass -- a vigorous native prairie grass -- also is a promising feedstock crop for ethanol production. However, a big hurdle in farming it is establishing a strong plant stand, which requires seeds that germinate quickly and keeping weedy competitors at bay. To that end, horticulture professor Alan Taylor is working on seed treatments and coatings that protect germinating switchgrass plants from a selective herbicide, as well as more fundamental research on why some seeds germinate quickly and others sleep in.

"Once we understand the secrets of what makes the seeds tick, we can work on developing a seed treatment that will give farmers greater success in their plantings," said Taylor.

To reduce use of fossil fuels on campus roads for the many short truck trips around campus, the Geneva campus uses an electric car and pickup truck -- and a third vehicle is on order.

Since campus offices and labs hum with heavy energy-using equipment, Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences launched its CALS Green energy conservation and sustainability initiative, including a competition among six campus buildings to reduce their energy use.

Volunteers in Barton Hall in Geneva committed to simple, small steps to reduce their energy use, such as using double-sided printing and turning off lights and fume hoods when they are not in use. Since October, their reported actions should save about 280,240 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and an estimated $31,000 annually.

And at the NYSAES satellite Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory in Portland, N.Y., a project is under way to harness the sustained winds blowing across Lake Erie. By fall, the Concord grape research plots will be home to a new wind turbine.

"It was a pragmatic decision -- energy efficiency was necessary to make the facility affordable," said Joseph Freeland, the NYSAES manager of projects for buildings and properties. "A single turbine is expected to produce 10-20 percent of the energy needed to power the lab."

Amanda Garris is a freelance writer in Geneva, N.Y.