Scott,
I attempted to do what you are describing this year. I'd rather not list the source, as I had great results the first 2 years, have found the owner to be very accommodating and have yet to talk to him about this year's results. I ordered 20,000 and got appear to have gotten a "bad batch" this year, as it only worked acceptably on 1 property, growing conditions were good on all of them and we planted them the same way we did the 1st 2 years purchasing from that source (tree planter, with very minimal prep.....sprayed where we were planting and merely rand the planter through and dropped rhizomes)
Edit: I'm NOT counting my results where I tried to use it as bedding. that was different than what I have done in the past in all but 1 previous test I did. I'm basing the "bad batch" statement on where I used it for screening, as I did it the same way in previous years. My survival rate on the new screens I tried to establish was really bad this year.
Because it was a first year and it appears to be a failure, I can't say if this would have worked great or not, but here's is what I did:
Last year, I planted cereal rye in the 3 locations I wanted to try miscanthus bedding. This winter, I also frost seeded a combo of switch, big blue and indian in those areas.
This spring I sprayed generic round up to kill the cereal rye and very few weeds and grasses present, well before the NGs germinated.
When the miscanthus shipped after their harvest, I essentially planted it in concentric half circles, putting them in at every 3ish feet, spacing the rows about 10' apart.
The thought was that the miscanthus would at first help the NGs stand tall all winter, only to eventually completely take over 6-10 years from now. My plan was also to mow/maintain trails (which happened to concentrate and dump out by low impact stands) and open pockets within, for deer bedding.
I "think" it would work incredibly well, but can't say for certain either way. I know I will be trying it again next year, as I did supplement a switch screen I made with miscanthus and the miscanthus has been doing great in it for 3 years running now, despite the switch also doing great...I do believe the miscanthus will eventually win that fight, though