Influence of Landscape Position On Biomass Feedstock Productivity.

Agricultural producers in Iowa and throughout the Midwestern United States are gearing up to meet the increased biomass demands associated with world and more specifically regional bioenergy production. Potential cropping systems to be included in this bioenergy portfolio need to be developed, tested, and compared to an intensive continuous corn system. More specifically, this experiment aims to evaluate and compare establishment and productivity of intensive continuous corn systems and alternative biomass production systems on different landscape positions. This study is part of an on-going experiment referred to as the Landscape Biomass Project in Boone County, IA. Five cropping systems including continuous corn, switchgrass with corn as a nurse crop, triticale/aspen, triticale/sorghum, and a modified corn/soybean rotation were analyzed on five landscape positions, elevation ranges from 300 m on the floodplain to 325 m on the summit. Establishment of perennial crops and productivity from all cropping systems was measured during the 2009-2012 growing seasons.