TITLE:
Biomass Production of Monocultures and Mixtures of Cup Plant and Native Grasses on Prime and Marginal Cropland
AUTHORS:
Arvid Boe, Kenneth A. Albrecht, Paul J. Johnson, Jixiang Wu
KEYWORDS:
Silphium perfoliatum L., Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum L., Prairie Cordgrass, Spartina pectinata Link, Bioenergy, Pollinators, Eucosma giganteana Riley, Ecosystem Goods and Services
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.10 No.6,
June
18,
2019
ABSTRACT: To date, most candidate systems for producing herbaceous
cellulosic biomass have been composed of monocultures of perennial or annual
grasses. Ecosystem goods and services provided from these biomass feedstock
production systems could be increased dramatically with mixing of one or more
forb species that would increase biodiversity and provide habitat for
pollinators. Cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum L.) is featured with many desirable
characteristics, such as high biomass potential, adaptation to marginal soils,
and attractiveness to pollinators, desirable in a dicot species to grow in
mixtures with perennial warm-season grasses. The objective of this study was to
compare cup plant, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), and prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata Link) monocultures to their mixtures for biomass production on prime and poorly
drained marginal crop land for two years in both South Dakota and Wisconsin. In
Wisconsin, monocultures of prairie cordgrass and cup plant and their mixture
produced more biomass (8.1 Mg·ha-1) than the switchgrass
monoculture and switchgrass/cup plant mixture (5.3 Mg·ha-1)
on both prime and marginal land. While in South Dakota, drought and meristem
destruction by the cup plant moth (Eucosma
giganteana Riley) caused large reductions in biomass production (1.7 Mg·ha-1)
in both years, with the switchgrass/cup plant mixture on marginal land having
the highest yield (2.1 Mg·ha-1). Our study showed binary
mixtures of cup plant and native warm-season grasses have great potential for
increasing biodiversity and other ecosystem goods and services, relative to
monocultures, for sustainable biomass feedstock production on poorly drained
marginal land in the northcentral USA.