Long-term productivity of short rotation coppice under decreased soil water availability

"Wood, in fact, is the unsung hero of the technological revolution that has brought us from a stone and bone culture to our present age" (Perlin 1991). Given its high-energy content and versatile use, biomass in the form of wood has been used for energy purposes for millennia. The production and use of woody biomass resources has been expanding around the world. The main drivers of its use as a source of energy are diversification and mitigation of energy related greenhouse gas emissions through partial substitution for fossil fuels. An alternative to sourcing wood biomass from natural forests is short rotation woody coppice. Its productivity is largely dependent on the environment in terms of climatic conditions. Especially drought is the main constraint on woody biomass production and involves serious economic consequences. For that reason, our field experiment was designed to evaluate the impact of decreased soil water availability on productivity of a poplar based short rotation coppice plantation over multiple growing seasons during 2011-2014. Aboveground biomass productivity of treatments with and without throughfall exclusion was assessed within this study. Our results show a systematic decline in the productivity of the plots subjected to decreased soil water availability by 30% in 2011, 20% in 2012, 49% in 2013, and 51% in 2014 compared to control plot. Aboveground biomass productivity ranged from 8.8 to 9.9 t dry matter ha(-1) year(-1) for the control treatment and 4.5 to 8.0 t dry matter ha(-1) year(-1) for the treatment with throughfall exclusion. On average, the throughfall exclusion treatment exhibited 47% less productivity than control treatment had over the entire study period.