Farmer hopes miscanthus energy crop will unlock efficiencies

Miscanthus, also known as "elephant grass", is a perennial bamboo-like plant which grows up to 12 feet high, with the potential to yield 15 tonnes per hectare to be fed into biomass-fired renewable power stations.

As it thrives on unproductive land, Algy Garrod, of Manor Farm in Bintree, near Fakenham, has planted it around his irregular field margins so he can farm the better-quality arable land more efficiently by "squaring off" the edges.

“My neighbour put miscanthus on some very small fields next to waterways, which got me thinking that I could potentially use it to take out some of my less productive land,” he said.

“When I looked at my yield maps, certain areas of the farm performed poorly on an annual basis, typically areas on the edges of fields.

“So, I decided to put miscanthus on them. I’ve straightened out these fields with GPS, taking out bits near hedges or bendy field margins and edges.”

Mr Garrod has planted 10 hectares of miscanthus in total and hopes it will make his remaining arable acreage more manageable for his machinery and more efficient for conventional food cropping.

“I accept that there may well be some reduction in yield and I'm not suddenly expecting the miscanthus to be an amazing crop when it’s next to a hedge,” he said.

“But I’m not putting inputs [sprays and fertilisers] on and I’m not running on it, so I’m hoping that having taken those out of the equation it will give me a return.

“I’m also hoping it will provide me with some efficiency gains – my sprayer works better when it's going in a straight line as opposed to going around corners which creates inaccuracies when applying our inputs.”

As the perennial crop is still in its establishment phase it is too soon to tell if the decision will pay off financially, but Mr Garrod is hopeful. 

“We have no idea what the miscanthus will yield yet as we are only in years two/three, but by year five we will have a better idea,” he added.