Peculiarities of Development and Biomass Formation of Miscanthus in the Forest- Steppe of the Novosibirsk Ob Region
The aim of the investigation was to study the peculiarities of the development and biomass formation (aboveground and underground) of miscanthus with different rates of rhizome planting. The object of the research was Soranovsky variety of miscanthus. The work was carried out in the forest-steppe of the Novosibirsk Ob region in 2015-2017 on gray forest soils. The experiment included a different rate of planting of rhizome: 1.4 t/ha, 2.8 t/ha, 4.2 t/ha and 5.6 t/ha with their moisture content of 50%. The influence of the rates of rhizome planting on the growth of underground biomass was revealed by the end of the growing season of 2016; the maximum increase in rhizomes (7.7 t/ha) was recorded in the area with the rate of 5.6 t/ha. In the beginning of spring growth of plants, the content of carbohydrates in the rhizomes decreased from 12.3 to 1.1%, to the stage of shoots extinction the accumulation of sugars increased to 13.5%. By the end of vegetation in 2015 and 2016, we registered the increase in the density of the stalk in the areas with a high rate of planting rhizomes - 75 (5.6 t/ha) and 157 pcs/m2 (4.2 t/ha). In 2017, a decrease in the value of this index was observed in all variants of the experiment. Influence of planting rate on plant height in the phase of growth in 2015 and 2016 was not revealed, but to the flowering phase, there was a significant difference in all variants with the rate of rhizome planting of 1.4 t/ha, where the plant height averaged 90 cm in 2015 and 235 cm in 2016. The maximum number of stems (205 and 207 cm) in 2017 was noted at the plots with the rates of 2.8 and 4.2 t/ha. For three years of the research, an increase in the productivity of miscanthus with plant age was observed, from 3.5 t/ha in 2015 to 14.4 t/ha in 2017, with a significant leveling of this indicator in all variants by the end of the second year of life of the culture.