Talk:Panicum virgatum

What's the "(C4 carbon fixation)" thing about ? What does it have to do with the fact that we're talking about a "warm-season plant" ? ---

Almost all warm-season plants have the Kranz leaf anatomy (C4 carbon fixation). Why is this important? When scientists say a warm-season plant, this means this plant can tolerate high temperatures, are more water use efficient, are more nitrogen use efficient than cool-season plants and do not photorespire. The management and growth habits of warm-season grasses and cool-season grasses are different.

"Grazing sheep and horses on monoculture swtichgrass stands should be avoided." Because ?

  - Fair point, I've removed this.  I trust that anyone who replaces it will cite a source.

I agree, this article makes some interesting statements (eg. 1000 gallons of ethanol per acre), but without references it makes the statement feel meaningless. What other references on the ethanol yield per acrea for this stuff exist? Can it be used to make biodeisel as well?

Thirded. The "1000 gallons" statement appeared after the 2006 State of the Union address. I'm going to have to call shenanigans ont aht one, unless we can see some references.

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Is that "1000 gallon of ethanol per acre" per year? per harvest?

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There was an article on NPR tonight (February 1, 2006; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5183608). An expert on switchgrass (David Bransby, professor of energy crops at Auburn University) stated it can produce 5-10 tons/acre and "at least 100 gallons of ethanol per ton" with the best technologies. Dsm 07:19, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Relevant references

The references section included:

• Acres of farmland in the United States

and

• www.carbohydrateeconomy.org Ethanol energy balance calculations

... neither of which seem particularly relevant. The latter, in fact, doesn't even mention "switchgrass". I've zapped them on this basis. mdf 22:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Energy efficiency

Total energy in the universe is conserved switchgrass energy comes from the sun photosynthesis "He argues that for every unit of energy input, switchgrass yields four units out. The viability of switchgrass-derived biofuel as an alternative fuel remains contentious." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.252.32.31 (talk • contribs) 02:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

The energy spoken of was probably the fuel to run the tractors and so forth, not the energy from the sun ArrowStomper 08:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The question / comments below come from "wd0dyg@hotmail.com" :

If switchgrass can be clipped and used to produce ethanol, then how about using ordinary grass clippings from people's lawns? It gets clipped anyways. Maybe there are more grass clippings available than can be used for composting alone. Maybe more ethanol is more valuable than any composting. Grass clippings might be more useful than a person realizes. Maybe city waste and sanitation will have to forbid people from using the garbage for their grass clippings and make it mandatory to make all of their grass clippings available for collection sites. The people in charge of the collection sites (with more grass than ever) can determine how much is used for composting and how much is used for the production of ethanol.

New additions on background, heating fuels, forages, and establishment

• This was written by a student in my class and I'm posting it for her.
• The references in these sections don't match the existing referral system. I'm going to add those to the bottom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SoilMan2007 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
• Could someone help us with this. I don't know how to merge the reference sections. Thanks, SoilMan2007 (talk)

Soilman and students:

I have formatted the first two new footnotes. Here is what I did.

1. In place of your number one, I added <ref></ref>, which you will find in the Wiki markup section under the edit box. That automatically creates a consectutively-numbered footnote. Then after the <ref> and before the </ref> (note the difference between them: the / is very important) I selected and inserted a citation template. The one I chose was the {{cite web}} one, which, when inserted, produces this:

<ref>{{cite web | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = | work = | publisher = | date = | url = | format = | doi = | accessdate = }}</ref>

only it appears in a tabular form, which is easier to work with. Then I filled in the fields-- I find it easier to have one page open to the source, and another screen open to the edit page, so you can go back and forth. (You also may want to have a third one open to Citation templates.) I then deleted the empty fields (this is optional). That produced the fully-formatted footnote 1 you now see. (1st edit)

Going on to your footnote 2, I noted that the source had already been used. So I went to that prior use and formatted it, as above. I used a trick however which enables the footnote to be reused more than once. Instead of starting the footnote with <ref>; I added the author's name, and made it <ref name = Silzer>.(2d edit) The reason I did that it to enable other uses of that source anywhere in the article to use a shorthand reference form. How? Wherever you want to cite the source again, you just add <ref name = Silzer/> (note that here you have to add that all-important / after the name and before the >), and the footnote will link to the same source. That is what I did with your old footnote 2 (3d edit)-- note how one footnote now appears in two places.

Try this on a few footnotes-- or all of them-- as they all have to be done sometime. Select a citation template appropriate to the source (book, journal, web), put it between the <ref></ref>, fill in the fields you can, and you will have professional-looking footnotes.

When you are creating footnotes, insert them after the punctuation mark, either the period or comma.

You can get a tutorial on all of this at Wikipedia:Citing_sources. The type of referencing used her is footnote referencing, discussed at Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Footnote_referencing and Wikipedia:Footnotes.

Good luck. Kablammo (talk) 00:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I"m going to take this off. I'd like the student to post it. Thanks for your help and we will have this back soon. SoilMan2007 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 03:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• I hope we will have this material up next week. SoilMan2007 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 03:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• Help, can someone tell me how the copyright images of the two new images can be edited. Thanks, 128.163.192.39 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• Help, we are having major problems figuring out these references for the new additions. We also need help with the copyright on the two new images.