Journal of Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers ISSN:1738-3692(Print) 2093-7709(Online) 한국농공학회논문집

Miscanthus is one of the promising energy crops for producing bioethanol or bioenergy in many countries. A field of about 180 ha for miscanthus plantation was started for demonstration near Geum River in 2011. Since the size of the field is much larger than those of traditional cultivation for one single crop in this country, questions were raised if there are any environmental impacts from the energy crop plantation, particularly on water quality. In this study, water quality of runoff water from three different plots was analyzed for assessing the impacts of energy crop production. The results showed that there were no substantial differences among the plots; control, the first, and the second year growth fields. The concentrations of COD, T-N, and T-P were lower than those in runoff water from agricultural crop fields. The second year field showed a slight higher values of COD and T-N concentrations due to the biodegradation of residue of miscanthus which was not cultivated for observation. Commercial planation of miscanthus in a large scale would not result in a water quality problem when avoiding application of fertilizer as practiced in agricultural crop fields.