Biomass production of energy willow under unfavourable field conditions

Abstract

The production of woody energy crops may offer a real alternative for the utilisation of unfavourable cropping sites during the coming years. An experiment with woody energy crops on rustbrown forest soil was set up in 2007 at the Crop Production and Biomass Utilisation Demonstration Centre of Szent István University in the town of Gödöllő. The experiment was aimed at studying five willow varieties (Tora, Tordis, Inger, Sven, Csala) at three different nutrient levels (control, fertilisers, compost). We were seeking for the nutrient treatment and the variety that would produce the best results in a two-year harvesting schedule.In 2009 the average (50.8 t/ha) of the plots where fertilisers were applied exceeded the control yield (38.6 t/ha) by 31.6% which was even exceeded by the plots where compost was applied (40.6 t/ha) by 5.2%. In 2011 the yields after the application of fertilisers (51.0 t/ha) and compost (49.2 t/ha) exceeded the control yield (37.5 t/ha) by 36.0% and 31.2%, respectively. In 2009 a 22.9% while in 2011 a 49.7% difference was found between the average yields of the two different groups of varieties, respectively. The Tordis and Sven varieties fell short of, while Csala, Inger and Tora exceeded the 40 t/ha two-year biomass yield in both 2009 and 2010. In view of the impacts of the different growing seasons further studies will need to be carried out in order to be able to choose the variety that is best suited to the given site.