The nearly $1 million will go toward planting trees at various locations across the state.

The modified trees produce more sugar, which is the part of the tree that can produce ethanol.

NC State's Principal Investigator for the project Hasan Jameel says now is the time to use trees this way.

"It probably wouldn't make sense that you could make trees into ethanol at a dollar a gallon of gas. But once you start getting around three, four dollars a gallon, it becomes possible to do it."

It will take five to ten years before the trees can be harvested. But Jameel says the genetic modification allowing them to produce more ethanol also makes them grow faster.

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