ROLE OF CUTTING TYPE AND PLANTING DENSITY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF BIOMASS FROM NAPIER GRASS (Pennisetum purpureum SCHUMACH.)

Climate change is going to impact agriculture, so that biofuel production from crops like Napier grass will be produced under more restricted environment's conditions in the upcoming years. This field experiment was conducted to determine the importance of the size of cane-section cuttings establishment and performance on the field under minimal farming management in the Nakhon Ratchasima Province/Thailand. The effects of initial cutting length, planting method (vertical or horizontal) or initiation density of setts (a short cane-section cutting that contains at least two nodes) were compared as to propagation success, plant survival, tiller formation and dry matter yield (DMY) under rainfed conditions in randomized block design. An early harvest, tested on horizontally buried setts, did not affect an increase of tiller formation, but the tiller increased with maturation instead. The planting method, horizontal or vertical, of setts did not affect the plant architecture like tiller formation for DMY production in the end. In the drier 2012/13 period, an increasing density of setts tended to produce more DMY, a trend, that was lost during the wetter 2013/14 period. Though longer canes produced absolutely more DMY than the compared smaller sections but a significantly better performance or DMY could not been found. From our results, we conclude that the rate of successfully propagated cuttings or plant architecture is not equivalent for DMY. Attributes like planting density or length of cane-section did not affect the later-produced biomass under restricted farming conditions.