Abstract
Fertilisation has a significant impact not only on the yielding, but also on the quality of the harvested biomass. Among energy crops, Miscanthus × giganteus are some of the most important plants used for combustion process. The chemical composition of biomass has significant impact on the quality of combustion biomass. The effect of nitrogen fertilisation (with dose of 60 kg N ha−1) in different terms of biomass sampling on the content and uptake of crude ash, potassium, calcium and sulphur by rhizomes, stems, leaves and the aboveground part of miscanthus was evaluated in the paper. Nitrogen fertilisation contributed to the increase of ash content in the rhizomes and the aboveground part of plants. Independently of nitrogen fertilisation potassium content decreased in the whole vegetation period; in the case of stems this decrease amounted 60%. Calcium content in various parts of plants was highly differentiated compared to potassium content. Average calcium content in the aboveground parts was 2.68 higher compared to rhizomes. Nitrogen fertilisation affected significantly on potassium, calcium and sulphur uptake in all examined parts of plants (except stems in the case of calcium uptake). Uptake of crude ash under nitrogen fertilisation was significantly higher in all examined parts of plants during the whole vegetation period.
Highlights
Accepted: 14 January 2021The need to counteract and prevent increasingly rapid climate change is leading to the implementation of processes that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources
Even though rhizomes are not involved in the combustion process, (p = 0.0002) and aboveground part of Miscanthus ×giganteus (p < 0.001) except for the leaves knowledge of the ash content of rhizomes allowed the ash content to significantly increase was found
Our results highlight a decline in the concentration of crude ash and macronutrients in aboveground parts of plants from spring to autumn
Summary
The need to counteract and prevent increasingly rapid climate change is leading to the implementation of processes that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. Besides the continued use of non-renewable fossil fuels, which include hard coal, lignite, natural gas and oil, energy from renewable sources is increasingly used. The acquisition of renewable energy sources is currently directed towards agriculture [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Energy from plant biomass is mainly obtained by pyrolysis, gasification or direct combustion of appropriately ground or granulated mass [9,10]. × giganteus Greef et Deuter) can play a significant role as a source of renewable energy for Europe [11,12,13]. Obtaining high quality biomass for the combustion process depends on the quality of the raw material (biomass) [14,15], while the quality of the raw material depends on the content of various elements (for example, high lignin content is desirable for thermochemical and undesirable for biochemical processes) [16,17]
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