Rent your land out for grazing to get some revenue coming in, and fence off a small portion and try a few different species of boo. Look around at what's growing best for people in your area, and/or what's in demand and give that a try. Take your favorites and fence off larger patches to grow them and soforth.

Be aware that a windmill will need to be at least 30' above the tallest structure/tree/plant within 300' of it. So if you have boo growing 45' tall your mill will need to be at least 75' up. Often the tower is more expensive than the mill itself. Investigate axial-flux mills - DIY and inexpensive. Also investigate nickel-iron batteries - they last practically forever and tolerate complete discharges and overcharging without damage. They're expensive tho - but then so is changing out lead-acid batteries every few years.

Be well,
Mike

-- Zone 8, Texas
http://www.taroandti.com/ Exotic Plant Info and More...

Walter Palmer wrote:

I should have mentioned that this is a feasibility study.
Right now, the field is in "weeds" aka fallow. I'm not much of a gardener, but there is all this land sitting idle. My wife's family is trying to come up with some way of putting the land to use that doesn't take a bunch of effort. We are not now, but will be living on the property in 2 - 3 years. It's my father-in-law's farm, actually his parent's, who have passed. He is 86 himself. I can do as I like with two acres, so that's a start.
I have come to the conclusion that the question revolves around scale. First the property is about 17 acres and is hilly. It's close to Corbin, KY, so of course, it's hilly! This is halfway between Lexington, KY and Knoxville, TN. I am not competing with the loggers on TV or Gurney's or Jackson and Perkins.
I am retired and my wife is retiring next year, so the phrase "a lot of time" is relative.
When we were there last week I was thumbing through a copy of 'Kentucky Life' and read an article praising bamboo farming. Then I read what the University of KY had to say about it and it seems they are talking through both sides of mouths. (I suspect that UK is part of the team publishing the magazine.)
A quick check of Google maps tells me that plants are sold in the Cincinnati area and in Virginia, so climate should not be a problem. Anything that grows in the Cincinnati area will grow in Corbin.
Right now, I think I have decided to go ahead with it. What remains is to choose a variety - which may be the detail the Devil is in. As an aside, the electric transformer in our back yard blew up Tuesday night, so "independence" has a more personal meaning for me than for most. Thirty years ago I was talked out of a yard/garden center windmill to generate electricity and now regret it. I still can and will.
To connect that with the bamboo question, let me say that had a small windmill been charging a few car batteries in the basement, that seven hour outage would have been much less disruptive. If I get a privacy/ wind screen that pays for itself, I'm good with it. Anything over that is a bonus.
Thanks