Understanding and exploiting the diversity of form in Miscanthus

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In order to tackle the problem of climate change, and address the challenge of atmospheric CO2 abatement, sustainable technologies must be developed and introduced. One of these technologies involves the use of energy crops to replace coal, oil and natural gas in direct combustion, gasification, biodiesel production, and fermentation to alcohols. The advantage of biomass over fossil fuels is that combustion releases only the carbon taken up during growth, and so the energy generated is carbon neutral. The UK government aims to generate 10% of energy from biomass by 2010 to help achieve it's obligations under the Kyoto Climate Change Agreement. Moreover biomass is the only renewable capable of providing liquid transport fuels and green chemicals and there is a UK target of 5% of transport fuels to be renewable by 2010. Miscanthus is a giant perennial grass with excellent characteristics for a biomass crop in Northern Europe as it combines rapid growth with tolerance to low temperatures. Once established, it requires minimal fertiliser input and has excellent disease resistance whilst producing a high yield of biomass annually. However a fundamental understanding of the growth and development in Miscanthus is lacking because it is a novel crop for Europe, and is now needed. Preliminary research has identified several plant characteristics of interest in relation to yield and quality of biomass. For example, plant size and shape are of paramount importance, in particular the relationship between stem diameter and height. These characteristics are already known to be readily measurable and under genetic control, and are therefore open to improvement by crop breeding. Biomass yield is directly correlated with plant height, and stem diameter is also an important character to prevent plants falling over. Currently, the most commonly planted energy crop is Miscanthus x giganteus, a naturally occurring hybrid between Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus sacchariflorus. The two parent species display contrasting forms: Miscanthus sinensis is compact with numerous stems while Miscanthus sacchariflorus is tall with few stems. IGER has a unique collection of Miscanthus, the most comprehensive in Europe, which includes plants with very different forms that can be used to identify the genes responsible for characteristics such as stem height and thickness. Miscanthus takes three years to become fully established, so the use of DNA sequences to predict the mature plant characteristics would greatly speed up the breeding process to increase biomass yield. This project aims to develop suitable sequences and use them to understand what controls growth and form in Miscanthus, and hence assist the breeding programme.