The
lowland switchgrass cultivars are allotetraploid (2n = 4x=36) and consist of two highly homologous subgenomes, designated as Chr.a and Chr.b [40].
The objective of this study was to investigate performance of upland and lowland switchgrass cultivars under different environments in this region and under two different management strategies.
The data suggest that the upper southeast USA can certainly employ lowland switchgrass cultivars, but site-specific studies may be needed to optimize cultivar choice.
In the first full production year, plots of lowland switchgrass in El Centro yielded 17.6 tons per acre.
Biomass yields for upland and lowland switchgrass varieties grown in the Mediterranean region.
In another study with northern and southern populations of upland and
lowland switchgrass, the model showed realistic simulated yields in Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
(1983) reported narrow-sense heritability estimates of 0.25 and 0.59 based on individual half-sib progeny and half-sib progeny means, respectively, for plant dry weight in lowland switchgrass populations.
Plant materials consisted of 11 lowland switchgrass populations (Alamo, SL [C.sup.0], SL [C.sup.1], SL [C.sup.2], SL92-1, SL94-1, 'Kanlow', NL [C.sup.1], NL [C.sup.2], NL92-1, and NL94-1).
Plants with the lowland cytotype are extremely rare north of 38[degrees] N lat (Hultquist et al., 1997), suggesting limited cold tolerance in
lowland switchgrass germplasm.
This report documents the first successful controlled crosses between upland and
lowland switchgrass validating the effectiveness of the procedure.
(1983) obtained heritabilities at a single location of 0.91 to 1.49 for maturity and concluded that there was sufficient variation in flowering date in native
lowland switchgrass populations to hasten or delay flowering time.
An analysis of variations between upland and
lowland switchgrass, P.