Site description and location selection
This experiment was performed at the West Virginia University (WVU)
Animal Sciences farm in Morgantown, West Virginia (39°40’10.2”N,
79°55’53.6”W). This site is located next to the former Baker’s Ridge
Mine Site (National Mine Repository 304559) and is managed as a
cool-season grass pasture (detailed site description available in Kane
et al. 2023, in review ). Miscanthus plots were established in
2019 using a fully randomized block design with 4 fertilization
treatments replicated 8 times for a total of 32 plots (Kane et al. 2023,in review ). Each plot is 5m2 and was
established by planting 25 miscanthus rhizomes using
1m2 grid spacing (site map, SI Fig. 2a ).
Plots are fertilized yearly with treatments that include no
fertilization, low-level inorganic N additions (28.5 kgN/ha), high-level
inorganic N additions (57 kgN/ha), and organic fertilization (local
manure, ~57 kgN/ha). For this experiment, we utilized
the control, high-level inorganic, and organic fertilization treatments.