Renewable energy crops

Phys.Org (Isle of Man, Oct. 8) -- In addition to providing renewable energy, grass crops like switchgrass and miscanthus could store some of the carbon they pull from the atmosphere in the soil, according to a new study by Illinois researchers. The study, led by civil and environmental engineering professor Praveen Kumar, compared soil dynamics--the ratio of carbon to nitrogen and microbial activity--of bioenergy crops with that of a standard corn-corn-soybean rotation. They found that in bioenergy crops, a certain threshold of plant matter left in the field after harvest lets much more carbon accumulate in the soil.