Miscanthus Collection and Biological Investigation in China

Miscanthus, one of the leading biofuel crops for the ‘‘second generation’’ cellulosic bioethanol, has been gained extensive attention because they are highly efficient biomass accumulators, non-food crops, and adaptable to marginal lands not well suited to food crop production. Most of Miscanthus species are recognized native to southeastern Asia (China and neighbouring regions). China hosts major diverse resources of Miscanthus which are distributed from latitude North 50° to South 22°in China, only excluding three west provinces. This broadly distribution provides a wealth of genetic diversity and traits for Miscanthus improvement programs. We have collected 216 Miscanthus germplasm, which were grew in different ecological regions of 25 Provinces and Autonomous Regions in China, and planted them in the experiment garden of Shandong Agricultrual University in 2011. The collected germplasm belong to the four main Miscanthus species in including M. sinensis, M. floridulus, M. lutarioriparius and M.sacchariflorus. Cytological and evolutionary investigations are performed on those collected Miscanthus Germplasm. Most of the collections (85%) are diploid, some of them (14%) are tetraploid, a few (1%) are triploid. The evolutionary investigation by molecular marker on the germplasm indicated the clearly relationships between each of these germplasm. These Miscanthus germplasm and the investigation results will provide original novel resources for improving that Miscanthus species on a global scale.