Miscanthus is a rhizomatous perennial C4 grass and has been studied as a lignocellulosic biomass energy crop in Europe and USA. Although Korea has many native Miscanthus species, however, Miscanthus has never been considered as a potential bioenergy crop and not much studied. Therefore, we collected Miscanthus spp (M. sinensis and M. sacchariflorus) in Korea and overseas and conducted a field experiment during 2008-2010 to investigate their agronomic characteristics related to biomass yield and thus to select genotypes with a high biomass yield potential. The agronomic characteristics assessed are plant height, leaf area, stem thickness, stem density, flowering time, dry weight and so on. Some Korean genotypes particularly collected in Jeju and Gyeonggi showed very high biomass yield, suggesting that they can be used for breeding a new Miscanthus cultivar for biomass production. Correlation analyses showed that plant height, stem thickness and density are closely related with biomass yield. Flowering times vary with genotypes and their collection sites. Phenotypic information of Korean Miscanthus we present herein may be useful for further studies on Miscanthus as a bioenergy crop.

• Soo-Hyun Lim(Department of Plant Science, Seoul National University) Corresponding author
• Jin-Won Kim(Department of Plant Science, Seoul National University)
• Shin-Wook Kang(Department of Plant Science, Seoul National University)
• Do-Soon Kim(Department of Plant Science, Seoul National University)