Experience of growing giant miscanthus variety Kamis in the moderately arid forest-outlier steppe of the Altai Region

Abstract

The possibilities of using the promising crop silver-grass for industrial, energy and environment-forming purposes are discussed. On the trial plots of the Altai State Agricultural University established under the conditions of the moderately arid forest-outlier steppe, we studied the effect of pre-planting soaking of rhizomes of the giant miscanthus variety KAMIS with the biological product Eco-Stim on rooting, growth, development, survival and accumulation of the main structural components. The adaptive ability of the KAMIS variety to the growing conditions was also studied. It was found that rhizome soaking in a solution of the Eco-Stim biological product promoted better rooting. The rooting ability increased by 3.9%. The use of Eco-Stim also allowed plants growing and developing more actively, gaining more biomass; the difference in height at the end of the growing season of the first year was 5.1 ± 8.0 cm as compared to 44.2 cm in the control. The accumulation of biomass due to the biological product increased by 2.6 g per plant, and that of dry matter - by 0.43 g per plant. At the same time, the yield of raw biomass was 0.0402 t ha, and in the Eco-Steam variant it was 0.088 t ha. The use of Eco-Stim product under the harsh winter conditions of Siberia on the first year of life helps to increase survival by 15-19%, and in subsequent years - by 3-4%. In subsequent years of growing, the yields increase by 0.32-0.61 t ha regarding raw matter and by 0.069-0.137 t ha regarding dry matter. For the KAMIS variety, the natural and climatic conditions of the Altai Region’s steppe with low precipitation turned out to be insufficiently favorable and did not allow the crop to realize its full productivity potential. The plant height on the first year of life was no more than 0.7 m with low dry matter content; in subsequent years it did not reach 1.5 m.