Early harvest

In mid November the miscanthus grass had gone dormant enough to take an inital harvest.

 The local IKM-Manning high school ag department was interested in using miscanthus grass in part of its renewable energy study. They needed some of the material to attempt to make experimental cellulosic ethanol out of it. We chose a 10'x10' area of a good stand of miscanthus grass in the highest planted population area. A majority of the leaves and tops of the grass had already fallen off the plants. We cut the grass manually about 2-6" from the ground and put the harvested miscanthus is a tub.
The harvested miscanthus was weighed at 21.4lbs. This is the as harvested weight and moisture content still needs to be accounted for. At this harvest rate, it could be expected to record approximately 9,300 lbs of biomass per acre.
The entire acre plot would not record this.  This was from one of the best plots in the field, but a plot of how a biomass crop is expected to be when mature.
More to come on how the ethanol experiments go and how the miscanthus fares over the winter.

The harvested miscanthus

Fall year 2

The end of year two came with very little rain to speak of. Some rainfall did come in the end of August and into September that kept everything alive, but overall yields were reduced. The grass seemed very similar in growth and overall yield similar to year 1. There were certain patches that did very well in year 1 that did show a great final yield in year 2.

Field in late October - mostly volunteer grass is visible

By the end of October, a lot of the mischantus grass had begun going dormant. The tops of most of the plants had fell to the ground already.

A batch of really good year 2 growth with a 4 wheeler parked in front of it.

As can be seen in the picture above, the grass may have topped out at about 7 feet or so. It should also be noted that the grass did head out with whispy or cotton like seeds. It was expected the grass would not have a long enough growing cycle to ever go to seed, but apparently the drought may have affected the normal growth pattern of the grass.
it can also be seen in the picture that the tall grass was still a hue of green. The grass had begun to shut down, but was still in the process of going dormant. It would not be recommended to harvest the grass at this stage.

Another picture of the end of year 2 grass, one of the better stands. 

Late summer drought

Sorry I found this post in the draft stage. Should have been posted in August...

The widespread drought is also taking its fair toll on the miscanthus growth. Any new growth was stunted as the grass ran out of water and coped with 100F+ temperatures. There has been some rainfall in the past few weeks that has allowed the crop to wake back up, but the amount of growth that was expected for year two seems again to be a disappointing year.
 

 The picture shows the field taken in the middle of August. There is heavy volunteer grass pressure as there was last year. The miscanthus grass is as tall or taller than the volunteer grass in most parts which is a big improvement over the previous year.