Miscanthus: A Review of European Experience with a Novel Energy Crop

Miscanthus is a tall perennial grass which has been evaluated in Europe over the past 5-10 years as a new bioenergy crop. The sustained European interest in miscanthus suggests that this novel energy crop deserves serious investigation as a possible candidate biofuel crop for the US alongside switchgrass. To date, no agronomic trials or trial results for miscanthus are known from the conterminous US, so its performance under US conditions is virtually unknown. Speculating from European data, under typical agricultural practices over large areas, an average of about 8t/ha (3t/acre dry weight) may be expected at harvest time. As with most of the new bioenergy crops, there seems to be a steep ''learning curve.'' Establishment costs appear to be fairly high at present (a wide range is reported from different European countries), although these may be expected to fall as improved management techniques are developed

Worldwide estimates and bibliography of net primary productivity derived from pre-1982 publications

An extensive compilation of more than 700 field estimates of net primary productivity of natural and agricultural ecosystems worldwide was synthesized in Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s. Although the Osnabrueck data set has not been updated since the 1980s, it represents a wealth of information for use in model development and validation. This report documents the development of this data set, its contents, and its recent availability on the Internet from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center for Biogeochemical Dynamics. Caution is advised in using these data, which necessarily include assumptions and conversions that may not be universally applicable to all sites