Specific crops Miscanthus

The offtake of a crop yielding 14 ODTs will be around 85 kg N/ha, 15 kg P and 120 kg K, so these should be replaced. It is a very efficient user of soil nutrients and usually does not respond to more than these maintenance dressings. Timing of fertiliser is not critical although the logical time to apply the nitrogen would be in May, before rapid growth occurs. 

Weed control in Miscanthus is relatively simple. A herbicide may be needed in year two, while the crop is establishing, for the control of grass and broad-leaved weeds and this must be done during the dormant period between harvest and new growth. After that, the leaf litter keeps most weeds well suppressed. 

There are no serious diseases or pests that will economically affect the yield of the crop. With an increasing area of the crop there may be potential for aphid infestation eanying virases such as B YD V. 

The driest samples are achieved by late harvesting in early sununer, but this compromises the following year s growth. The first year s growth is not usually harvested, so in the second year the crop is cut and swathed with a forage harvester, allowed to diy and then baled. Bales can be stored short-term outside if stacked carefully. If the crop has been chipped this will need well ventilated storage undercover if kept for any length of time and may have to be dried. 

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Here, a diflerentiation is made between energy crops grown specifically as fuels (like whole crop cereal, rape or sunflower seed, miscanthus, switch grass, or sugar cane) and by-products of other production (like straw). The lat-... 

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