Impact of environmental factors to wheat ethanol production in the conditions of Central Europe

Wheat with its advantages of high yield stability, well-mastered crop management and the possibility of long-term storage is suitable for ethanol production. Ethanol production has to be cost-effective and, therefore, wheat used in production should have a high potential for ethanol production. Previous works showed that low-nitrogen grain content is important for the relative ethanol yield and the agronomic yield for the absolute ethanol yield per area is important. In this work, importance of grain nitrogen and starch content for ethanol conversion efficiency was verified. Furthermore, environmental effects in relation to the ethanol conversion efficiency and ethanol yield in conditions of Central Europe were studied. With regard to the environmental factors, the annual rainfall sum was found to be the most important factor for ethanol conversion efficiency, while the grain yield was found to be the most important factor for the ethanol yield. On the basis of these findings it can be considered that wheat varieties possessing high yields of low protein grain planted in areas with higher rainfall amount would be ideal for the production of ethanol