Assessing forest understory biomass in northwest Florida (USA) and its potential to meet the state energy needs

A stratified random sampling approach was employed to quantify total biomass across prevalent non-commercial forest understory species found in six counties of northwest Florida, USA. The moisture content (wet basis) and calorific values of these species were also measured. Total green biomass from forest understory species was estimated to be around 12 million metric tons, mostly comprised of Cliftonia monophylla (titi, buckwheat tree) and Cyrilla racemiflora (white titi, swamp titi). This understory forest biomass would be sufficient to generate about 28.8 million GJ of electricity or 1589.25 million liters of ethanol. A need was identified to determine the inventory of forest understory biomass at the state level and assess the overall sustainability of utilizing forest understory biomass for bioenergy.