Author(s)

Érik da Silva Oliveira^1*, Rogério Figueiredo Daher¹, Niraldo José Ponciano¹, Geraldo de Amaral Gravina¹, José Augusto de Almeida Sant’ana², Romildo Domingos Gottardo¹, Bruna Rafaela da Silva Menezes³, Paulo Marcelo de Souza², Cláudio Luiz Melo de Souza¹, Verônica Brito da Silva¹, Avelino dos Santos Rocha¹, Antonio Alonso Cecon Novo²

¹Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, Brazil.
²Instituto Federal do Espírito Santo, Campus of Alegre, Alegre, ES, Brazil.
³Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, RJ, Brazil.

Elephant grass is a tropical forage plant widely spread in Brazil, used mainly in the livestock sector and in cattle feeding. Because of its high productivity and photosynthetic capacity, this culture has also been considered an alternative source of renewable energy. Six clones of elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum Schum.) were evaluated under five levels of nitrogen fertilization (100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 kg·N·ha^-1), in a randomized-block design with a split-plot arrangement with three replicates, from April 2010 to December 2012, in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes— RJ, Brazil. The objective was to obtain estimates of variation in morpho-agronomic traits and biomass quality. We observed that genotypes Cameroon-Piracicaba and Gua?u I/Z2 have great potential to be used, with maximum dry matter yields of 60.97 and 44.10 t·ha^-1 per cut for energy purposes among the studied genotypes.

Nitrogen Fertilization, Alternative Energy, Energy Biomass, Dry Matter Yield, Pennisetum purpureum Schum.

Silva Oliveira, É. , Figueiredo Daher, R. , José Ponciano, N. , Amaral Gravina, G. , Almeida Sant’ana, J. , Gottardo, R. , Silva Menezes, B. , de Souza, P. , Melo de Souza, C. , da Silva, V. , Santos Rocha, A. and Cecon Novo, A. (2015) Variation of Morpho-Agronomic and Biomass Quality Traits in Elephant Grass for Energy Purposes According to Nitrogen Levels. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 6, 1685-1696. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2015.611168.