There is an increasing interest in Europe in biomass crops as a source for renewable CO2-neutral energy, fuels, and chemicals and as a fibre source for the production of paper and other renewable materials. Many different plants are being considered for this purpose. For example trees such as willow, eucalyptus and poplar and annual crops such as hemp. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is one of the perennial rhizomatous grasses being developed for the purpose of biomass production. Since the early 1990s the crop has been developed as a model herbaceous energy crop for ethanol and electricity production in the USA and in Canada and it is also being considered as a paper pulp production feedstock. In this project a broad range of factors were investigated that determine the suitability of switchgrass as a lignocellulosic C4 biomass crop in Europe. The most important agronomic aspects like variety choice, nitrogen response, yield development, and establishment were evaluated together with specific energy and fibre applications. Information from literature, from small experiments conducted in Europe, and results from ongoing research on other perennial rhizomatous grasses served as a starting point for the project.
The GENERAL OBJECTIVE of this project was to evaluate switchgrass as a promising cost effective energy crop that will add to agricultural diversification in Europe and to generate sufficient data to be able to initiate large scale production trials and facilitate further development of switchgrass in Europe.
