Abstract
The generic complex Miscanthus Anderss. (Poaceae) is a unique example among herbaceous plants characterized by high values of growth of aboveground vegetative mass and practical use as a valuable source of alternative energy. Miscanthus is one of the most eff icient solar energy accumulators, and since phytomeliorative use implies the cultivation of these resource plants in inconvenient and semi-shady areas, the question about the effect of insuff icient lighting on the productivity of Miscanthus arises. As a result of a long-lasing introduction effort, the Central Siberian Botanical Garden SB RAS created a population of Miscanthus saccharif lorus (Maxim.) Benth., which has good prospects for growing under the conditions of the forest-steppe area in Western Siberia. The goals of our study were: (1) to determine the peculiarities of shoot formation, (2) to assess the cellulose and lignin accumulation in M. saccharif lorus populations under different lighting conditions and (3) to perform a DNA passportization of the Miscanthus population by ISSR marking. Evaluation of shoot formation and the amount of accumulated cellulose and lignin in plants was carried out under different degrees of illumination: one variant was grown in a sunny area, and the other, in partial shade. As a result of analysis of variance, it was found that the number of shoots does not depend on environmental conditions, but on the age of the plant, while environmental conditions have a signif icant effect on plant height. Although the samples of both M. saccharif lorus variants were characterized by different rates of creation of a continuous projective cover, plants in semi-shaded areas formed up to 89.34 % of shoots compared to their peers in illuminated areas, which did not affect signif icantly the size of the aboveground mass and the cellulose content in it. As a result of ISSR-analysis of genomic DNA in the M. saccharif lorus population, unique molecular polymorphic fragments were identif ied, which can be used for identif ication and DNA passportization at the inter-population level. Thus, the complex use of M. saccharif lorus as a valuable meliorative and bioenergetic culture is due to the high adaptive potential of this species. It was found that the illumination factor has virtually no effect on the amount of the cellulose content in the shoot, and a reduced content of the technologically undesirable lignin was observed in plants growing in the partial shade conditions.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, species of the genus Miscanthus, known as elephant grass, have become one of the plant objects that are practically inexhaustible sources of renewable raw materials for the production of glucose, which is a basic product for many developments in the field of alternative energy (Slynko et al, 2013)
Materials and methods The experimental plots of the Central Siberian Botanical Garden (CSBG SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia) are located in the forest-steppe part of Western Siberia, which belongs to the IV lighting zone and, in terms of the total number of hours of sunshine, it is close to Krasnodar and Yalta
The study of the specificity of shoot formation in M. saccharif lorus introduced into CSBG under the conditions of the continental climate of Western Siberia showed that early generative development of plants is undesirable for growing this species as a bioenergetic culture, since the accumulation of biomass stops
Summary
Over the past two decades, species of the genus Miscanthus, known as elephant grass, have become one of the plant objects that are practically inexhaustible sources of renewable raw materials for the production of glucose, which is a basic product for many developments in the field of alternative energy (Slynko et al, 2013). Unlike most traditionally cultivated C4 plants, such as sugarcane and corn, Miscanthus is able to maintain a high rate of photosynthesis even under relatively low temperatures (Naidu et al, 2003; Anisimov et al, 2016). This explains the high productivity of this grass grown in more severe than natural climatic conditions for the purpose of economic use as a technical (bioenergetic) crop in the forest-steppes of Western Siberia. Phytomeliorative use implies the cultivation of a resource species in inconvenient and semi-shady areas This applies to M. saccharif lorus plants for photosynthesis, which requires a significant influx of photosynthetically active radiation. There is almost no data concerned with M. saccharif lorus usage as resource plants in semi-shady areas
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