Land and a Planter

We found the right piece of ground for our miscanhtus trial. We needed a one acre patch, which is bigger that what one might think. Any of the the yard area was too small, and any large patch was already in CRP. We did find one area on a North side-hill that is between 2 terraces. The area is a little over one acre. We wanted to avoid critical tile lines to protect the remaining farm ground, and wanted a relatively good area of ground that won't dry out too quickly.
We do not irrigate and have clay-loam soils. this is great for growing corn, but makes the soil somewhat heavy and dense for planting and digging rhizomes. We will give it a shot either way.

We picked up a planter to lease for planting rhizomes. It is a two row Ferguson Lister planter. The Lister planter cuts a deep furrow and is designed to plant corn in the furrow. We will modify the planting mechanism so that we can manually feed rhizomes from a seat mounted on the packer wheels. The photo from an online owner's manual is attached. http://www.ntractorclub.com/forums/manuals/messages/5409.html

The planter has 40" rows which should work great for our needs. we will plant double passes so 20" centers when completed, but 40" gives us room to work between the rows.
It is also recommended to double up rows to make next season digging go more smoothly. We may keep 40" centers, and plant double rows 12" apart for each 40" row. this will help us when digging up the rhizomes next year.

For the low population plot, 40" centers and 40" between plants will be how it is spaced. For the medium population plot we will have double rows 40" apart and plants every 20" in each row. This is to double the plant density from 8,000 to 16,000 rhizomes per acre. The high population plot will simulate 24,000 rhizomes per acre. This will have double rows on 40" centers planted 12" apart in each row. We will have to see how fast we can plant and how slow the tractor can go to achieve this. I assume a lot of work, but for a great reward.