Tomislav Toric
Revitalization of marginal agriculture soils presents one of the main challenges of the Croatian and East European agriculture. One of the possible solutions for increasing biomass and bioenergy production could be the wide introduction of multiannual energy crop Miscanthus x giganteus in intensive agricultural cultivation. Miscanthus x giganteus is characterized by its ability to grow in different agroecological conditions, because the plant has low requirements during the growing and high yield production of lignocellulosic biomass. The main characteristics of grass Miscanthus x giganteus are: the possibility of growing on soils of lower quality, high resistance to various pests and diseases (no pesticide treatments), natural sterile hybrid (there is no risk for uncontrolled spreading in environment), small requirements for fertilizer, but high energy value (from 17.05 to 19.21 MJ/kg). The aim of this presentation is to determine possibility of industrial cultivation of perennial lignocellulosic crop Miscanthus x giganteus on poor quality, contaminated or marginal agricultural lands. Only in EU there are around 30 % of marginal agricultural lands which can give the opportunity to produce various types of biofuels without competition with current food production. Furthermore, the advantages of perennial lignocellulosic crop cultivation over collecting and utilizing traditional agricultural residues will be shown