Comparison of the growth and biomass production of Miscanthus sinensis, Miscanthus floridulus and Saccharum arundinaceum

Abstract

Miscanthus and Saccharum are considered excellent candidates for bioenergy feedstock production. A field experiment was conducted in Zhejiang province of China to characterize the phenotypic differences in three species, two of Miscanthus (M. sinensis and M. floridulus) and one of Saccharum (S. arundinaceum), each with two accessions collected from China. Agronomical traits, including plant height, culm number, tuft diameter and culm diameter, were monitored monthly for the first 3 years of growth. For each year of trail, flowering time was observed and biomass yield was harvested. M. floridulus produced a superior biomass yield with increasing plant age associated with higher yields (4.18, 24.16 and 29.01 t dry matter/ha in November of years one to three, respectively). Higher culm diameter, plant height and tuft diameter values were observed for M. floridulus when compared to the other species. Biomass yield was positively correlated to tuft diameter, culm diameter, culm number and negatively to flowering time, but it showed no correlation with plant height. Tuft diameter and culm diameter could be suitable indicators in the selection of accessions for crop yield at the yield-building phase. Studies of the primary colonizers of Miscanthus and Saccharum in their original location may be of interest from the perspective of bioenergy germplasm resource collection.Additional key words: agronomic traits; perennial grasses; correlation analysis.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal association enhances drought tolerance potential of promising bioenergy grass (Saccharum arundinaceum retz.)

“…In this scenario, the use of perennial grasses for the lignocellulosic bioenergy production has gained more attention because of its abundancy, availability, regeneration capacity and ability to withstand drought (Wongwatanapaiboon et al 2012). S. arundinaceum, a perennial grass, has proved to be a promising bioenergy crop, which exhibits sustainable biomass yield (Feng et al 2015) and tolerance to salinity stress (Mirshad et al 2014). Now, the challenge is to find out perennial grass species that accumulate high biomass and at the same time that can be grown in various types of degraded land, so that the problem of its competition for land with that of food crops in arable land can be avoided.…”

Biomass yield in a genetically diverse Miscanthus sacchariflorus germplasm panel phenotyped at five locations in Asia, North America, and Europe

“…In this study, heading date, culm length, culm diameter, and culm volume were the primary drivers of biomass yield for M. sacchariflorus (Table 6). Prior studies have also identified flowering time, culm length (or plant height), and stem thickness as important contributors to Miscanthus biomass yield (Clark et al, 2019; Clifton‐Brown et al, 2001; Feng et al, 2015; Jezowski, 2008; Lim et al, 2014; Yan et al, 2012; Zub et al, 2011). However, a novel insight from the current study was that variation among M. sacchariflorus genotypes for plant height and consequently yield was conferred primarily by the number of nodes and not internode length.…”

Effects of soil physics, chemistry, and microbiology on soil carbon sequestration in infertile red soils after long‐term cultivation of perennial grasses

“…The SOC stock in SA is significantly higher than it in SG and MS, this is also mainly due to the high root weight and activity (Zhang et al, 2016). Although SA had the highest C sequestration potential, the aboveground dry matter was reported to be lower than that in MS and SG (Feng et al, 2015; Hou et al, 2015). According to our prior study, the fresh aboveground biomass yield of MS, SG, and SA was 4846.09 ± 963.58 g m −2 , 4566.83 ± 169.85 g m −2 , and 3772.72 ± 944.91 g m −2 , respectively.…”