Abstract
Many limited factors such as the lack of energy crops, complexity of availability of land use, and ecological and environmental restrictions have postponed the development of bioenergy production. We analyzed long-term cultivation of wild grass species, Miscanthus sinensis to assess biomass productivity (BP) in cold and snowfall region. Strains of M. sinensis derived from different origins were used to evaluate BP over 5 years. The experiment was carried out with three different sites; agricultural fertile land, infertile agriculturally marginal land and natural habitat land of M. sinensis. One agricultural land was put for fertilizer with four levels. BP decreased in the fifth year but remained high BP between 30-40 t ha^<-1>. Late harvesting decreased BP. However, spring harvest provided substantially up to 38 t ha^<-1>. M. sinensis yielded better under cropping system in agricultural lands. Surprisingly, fertilizer levels did not significantly impact to BP. M. sinensis strains derived from other parts of Japan showed highly productivity. Energy crop production system based on M. sinensis is possible in the aspect of long-term production. M. sinensis as an energy crop on infertile marginal lands could be fitted in the term of availability of land use as well as ecological and environment protection.
