The production of woody energy crops may offer a real alternative for the utilisation of unfavourable cropping sites during the coming years. In the Crop Production and Biomass Utilisation Demonstration Centre of the Szent István University in the town of Gödöllő we set up an experiment with woody energy crops on rust-brown forest soil back in 2007. The experiment was aimed at studying five willow varieties (Tora, Tordis, Inger, Sven, Csala) at three different nutrient levels (control, fertilisers, compost). We were seeking for the nutrient treatment and the variety that would produce the best results in a two-year harvesting schedule. In 2009 the average (50.8 t ha-1) of the plots where fertilisers were applied exceeded the control yield (38.6 t ha-1) by 31.6% which was even exceeded by the plots where compost was applied (40.6 t ha-1) by 5.2%. In 2011 the yields after the application of fertilisers (51.0 t ha-1) and compost (49.2 t ha-1) exceeded the control yield (37.5 t ha-1) by 36.0% and 31.2%, respectively. In 2009 the Hungarian Csala variety produced a biomass yield similar to the average of the Swedish varieties, 43.2 t ha-1 in two-year harvest schedule while 2011 was even better with a 53.6 t ha-1 two-year yield. In 2009 a 22.9% while in 2011 a 49.7% difference was found between the average yields of the two different groups of varieties, respectively. The Tordis and Sven varieties fell short of the 40 t ha-1 two-year biomass yield in both 2009 and 2010 while Csala, Inger and Tora exceeded it. In view of the impacts of the different growing seasons further studies will need to be carried out in order to be able to choose the variety that is best suited to the given site.

Keywords: short rotation coppice, biomass, willow, fertiliser, compost