Ending of Summer

The miscanthus plot has been doing very well over the summer. Fairly frequent rains, good sunshine, and heat have all helped grow the biomass. The broad leaf plants are gone, but the foxtail grass still grew up with the Miscanthus. It is most likely competing for sunshine if anything. The root mass of the foxtail looks sililar to the miscanthus of a fair amount of grass "stalks" coming out of the same cluster. the ground is rather bare, very similar to a corn field, completely canopied by the grass leaves. We are happy with the first year results.

The next big task is determining how to dig up the rhizomes for later propagation next spring. Still in the plan for this fall is to watch the grass go dormant, and try and harvest some of the grass over the winter. We would like to plan a field day next spring depending on how this fall and winter ends up.

The miscanthus plot can be rowed somewhat for the plants that are taller than the other grass. 

We drove into the back of the field to get a look at the best stand in the plot. A picture of Denny here standing by a row of 1st year miscanthus.

Lots of other grass though...

I took a picture from the road to view the plot from a distance, it was a little too level between the two terraces to see much.