Compositional analysis of Miscanthus giganteus by near infrared spectroscopy

Fourier transform near infrared spectroscopy was applied to ball-milled and dried whole plant Miscanthus × giganteus samples in combination with partial least square regression analysis for prediction of main constituents of the biomass. The developed models with 172 calibration samples had an R² in the range of 0.96–0.99. For the first time, the acetyl content was modeled for Miscanthus. An independent calibration set of 58 samples revealed a low root mean square error of prediction of 0.414 % for extractives, 0.485 % for glucan, 0.249 % for xylan, 0.061 % for arabinan, 0.050 % for acetyl, 0.198 % for Klason lignin, 0.226 % for total ash and 0.133 % for ash after extraction, an indication of a high level of accuracy. The results showed major improvement over previously reported models, which was attributed to the smaller particle size used. The models are a valuable tool for the fast monitoring of the composition of M. × giganteus in e.g. plant breeding studies.