Giant reeds (Arundo donax)

Arundo donax L.(also known as Giant reeds) is a tall perennial reed that is frequently found growing in water and is classified as an emergent aquatic plant. Giant reed is a sterile, high energy perennial capable of producing more than 40 dry tons per hectare. Along with this, giant reed’s fast growing nature produces a bamboo-like stalk reaching upwards of 6 meters and allows for harvesting at least once year after the establishment year.

Its development in Europe in recent years has shown significant benefits in Mediterranean environments where climate conditions allow an adecquate senescence process facilitating harvest operations. Nevertheless its production in  many areas requires irrigation at least during the first and second year, as well as specific harvest and logistic optimized schemes to reduce costs during the project lifetime. Planting, agronomy and harvesting management are all critic to understand how to produce low cost biomass in large scaled projects.  Specific machinery has been developed to harvest stalks, spearating leaves and maximizing the species performance when grown to feed paper mills, boilers, bio-digesters and gassifiers. [/one_half]

Our services include:

• Independent perspective to select best companies supplying planting material and machinery services
• Specific soil and climate conditions recommendations in Latin America and Europe
• Biomass to energy projects development including biogas, combustion and biofuel technologies and adoption guidelines
• Agronomic and plant physiology research and development and trails monitoring
• Harvesting solutions
• Pulp and energy projects development
• Environmental impact assessments

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