Info | Agave Zwolf

What is it?

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Designation of origin

To obtain the exclusive designation of origin “Agave Azul Tequilana Weber” (granted by the Consejo Regulador de Tequila), the agave must be planted and harvested just in Jalisco as well as some cities in Guanajuato, Michoacán and Nayarit, inside of Mexico, for that reason the project cannot be easily replicated in other parts of the world.

Agave Plant

The Agave plant can be reproduced between 3 and 5 years old, producing one or two shoots per year, the ones that could be removed and transplanted to become producing plants in the future.

The average weight after jimar (process of cutting agave) the agave core goes from 30 to 70 kilos (66.13 to 154.32 pounds), though in some crops they have weighed between 80 and 120 kilos (176.37 and 264.55 pounds).

PILOT TEST

When did it begin?

The pilot test started with 15,000 Agave shoots planted in 3 hectares in July 2022.

DATA

The date of the agave plantation and the average age of all the agaves, will be published in our website.

Dr. Promode Kant, India climate scientist

Agave is to the drier parts of the world what bamboo is to its wetter zones. Capturing atmospheric CO2 in vegetation is severely limited by the availability of land and water. The best choice would be species that can utilize lands unfit for food production and yet make the dynamics of carbon sequestration faster

Agave Tequilana Weber

Ideal for arid and hot climates, agaves and their companion trees, once established, require little or no irrigation to survive and thrive, and are basically impervious to rising global temperatures and drought. Agaves alone can draw down and store above ground the dry weight equivalent of 30-60 tons of CO2 per hectare (12-24 tons per acre) per year. One hectare equals 10,000 square meters or 2.47 acres

Time Required

By year seven the mesquite and agaves have grown into a fairly dense forest. In year eight to ten, the root stem or pina (weighing up 100-200 pounds) of the agave is ready for harvesting to produce a distilled liquor called mescal. Meanwhile the hijuelos or pups put out by the mother agave plants are being continuously transplanted back into the agroforestry system, guaranteeing continuous biomass growth (and carbon storage)

Revolutionary Techniques

The revolutionary innovation of these Guanajuato farmers has been to turn a heretofore indigestible, but massive and accessible source of biomass, the agave leaves, into a valuable animal feed, using the natural process of fermentation to transform the plants’ indigestible saponin and lectin compounds into digestible carbohydrates and fiber.

Climate Perspective

From a climate crisis perspective, the Modelo Zamarripa is a potential game-changer. Forty-three tons of above ground dry weight biomass production on a continuing basis per hectare per year ranks among the highest rates of drawing down and storing atmospheric carbon in plants in the world, apart from healthy forests.

Biomass Carbon Storage

Conservatively estimating an above ground biomass carbon storage rate of 10 tons of carbon per acre per year on these 500 million acres, (counting both agave and companion trees, aboveground and below ground biomass) we would then be able to cumulatively sequester five billion tons of carbon (18 billion gigatons of CO2e) from the atmosphere every year.

Varieties

In addition, its propagation of baby plants or pups, (up to 50 among some varieties) that grow out of its horizontal roots makes the plant a self-reproducing perennial, able to sustain high biomass growth, and carbon-storage and sequestration on a long-term basis. A very high level of above ground carbon storage and below ground sequestration can be maintained year after year.

More Information

The progress of the project and plantations will be published in our social networks.