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Projeto de investigação
Marginal lands for Growing Industrial Crops: Turning a burden into an opportunity
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Towards identifying industrial crop types and associated agronomies to improve biomass production from marginal lands in Europe
Publication . Scordia, Danilo; Papazoglou, Eleni G.; Kotoula, Danai; Sanz, Marina; Ciria, Carlos S.; Pérez, Javier; Maliarenko, Oksana; Prysiazhniuk, Oleh; von Cossel, Moritz; Greiner, Beatrice E.; Lazdina, Dagnija; Makovskis, Kristaps; Lamy, Isabelle; Ciadamidaro, Lisa; Petit-dit-Grezeriat, Lucas; Corinzia, Sebastiano A.; Fernando, Ana L.; Alexopoulou, Efthymia; Cosentino, Salvatore L.; DCTB - Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia da Biomassa (ex-GDEH); MEtRICS - Centro de Engenharia Mecânica e Sustentabilidade de Recursos; Wiley-VCH Verlag
Growing industrial crops on marginal lands has been proposed as a strategy to minimize competition for arable land and food production. In the present study, eight experimental sites in three different climatic zones in Europe (Mediterranean, Atlantic and Continental), seven advanced industrial crop species [giant reed (two clones), miscanthus (M. × giganteus and two new seed-based hybrids), saccharum (one clones), switchgrass (one variety), tall wheatgrass (one variety), industrial hemp (three varieties) and willow (eleven clones)], and six marginality factors alone or in combination (dryness, unfavorable texture, stoniness, shallow soil, topsoil acidity, heavy metal and metalloid contamination) were investigated. At each site, biophysical constraints and low-input management practices were combined with prevailing climatic conditions. The relative yield of a site-specific low-input system compared with the site-specific control was from small to large (i.e. from −99% in industrial hemp in the Mediterranean to +210% in willow in the Continental zone), due to the genotype-by-management interaction along with climatic variation between growing seasons. Genotype selection and improved knowledge on crop response to changing environmental, site-specific biophysical constraint and input application has been detected as key to profitably grow industrial crops on marginal areas. This study may act to provide hints on how to scale up investigated cropping systems, through low-input practices, under similar environmental and soil conditions tested at each site. However, further attention to detail on the agronomy of early plant development and management in larger multi-year and multi-location field studies with commercially scalable agronomies are needed to validate yield performances, and thereby to inform on the best industrial crop options.
Prospects of bioenergy cropping systems for a more social‐ecologically sound bioeconomy
Publication . Cossel, Moritz Von; Wagner, Moritz; Lask, Jan; Magenau, Elena; Bauerle, Andrea; Cossel, Viktoria Von; Warrach‐Sagi, Kirsten; Elbersen, Berien; Staritsky, Igor; van Eupen, Michiel; Iqbal, Yasir; Jablonowski, Nicolai David; Happe, Stefan; Fernando, Ana Luisa; Scordia, Danilo; Cosentino, Salvatore Luciano; Wulfmeyer, Volker; Lewandowski, Iris; Winkler, Bastian; MEtRICS - Centro de Engenharia Mecânica e Sustentabilidade de Recursos; DCTB - Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia da Biomassa (ex-GDEH); MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
The growing bioeconomy will require a greater supply of biomass in the future for both bioenergy and bio‐based products. Today, many bioenergy cropping systems (BCS) are suboptimal due to either social‐ecological threats or technical limitations. In addition, the competition for land between bioenergy‐crop cultivation, food‐crop cultivation, and biodiversity conservation is expected to increase as a result of both continuous world population growth and expected severe climate change effects. This study investigates how BCS can become more social‐ecologically sustainable in future. It brings together expert opinions from the fields of agronomy, economics, meteorology, and geography. Potential solutions to the following five main requirements for a more holistically sustainable supply of biomass are summarized: (i) bioenergy‐crop cultivation should provide a beneficial social‐ecological contribution, such as an increase in both biodiversity and landscape aesthetics, (ii) bioenergy crops should be cultivated on marginal agricultural land so as not to compete with food‐crop production, (iii) BCS need to be resilient in the face of projected severe climate change effects, (iv) BCS should foster rural development and support the vast number of small‐scale family farmers, managing about 80% of agricultural land and natural resources globally, and (v) bioenergy‐crop cultivation must be planned and implemented systematically, using holistic approaches. Further research activities and policy incentives should not only consider the economic potential of bioenergy‐crop cultivation, but also aspects of biodiversity, soil fertility, and climate change adaptation specific to site conditions and the given social context. This will help to adapt existing agricultural systems in a changing world and foster the development of a more social‐ecologically sustainable bioeconomy.
Marginal agricultural land low-input systems for biomass production
Publication . Von Cossel, Moritz; Lewandowski, Iris; Elbersen, Berien; Staritsky, Igor; Van Eupen, Michiel; Iqbal, Yasir; Mantel, Stefan; Scordia, Danilo; Testa, Giorgio; Cosentino, Salvatore Luciano; Maliarenko, Oksana; Eleftheriadis, Ioannis; Zanetti, Federica; Monti, Andrea; Lazdina, Dagnija; Neimane, Santa; Lamy, Isabelle; Ciadamidaro, Lisa; Sanz, Marina; Carrasco, Juan Esteban; Ciria, Pilar; McCallum, Ian; Trindade, Luisa M.; Van Loo, Eibertus N.; Elbersen, Wolter; Fernando, Ana Luisa; Papazoglou, Eleni G.; Alexopoulou, Efthymia; DCTB - Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia da Biomassa (ex-GDEH); MEtRICS - Centro de Engenharia Mecânica e Sustentabilidade de Recursos; MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
This study deals with approaches for a social-ecological friendly European bioeconomy based on biomass from industrial crops cultivated on marginal agricultural land. The selected crops to be investigated are: Biomass sorghum, camelina, cardoon, castor, crambe, Ethiopian mustard, giant reed, hemp, lupin, miscanthus, pennycress, poplar, reed canary grass, safflower, Siberian elm, switchgrass, tall wheatgrass, wild sugarcane, and willow. The research question focused on the overall crop growth suitability under low-input management. The study assessed: (i) How the growth suitability of industrial crops can be defined under the given natural constraints of European marginal agricultural lands; and (ii) which agricultural practices are required for marginal agricultural land low-input systems (MALLIS). For the growth-suitability analysis, available thresholds and growth requirements of the selected industrial crops were defined. The marginal agricultural land was categorized according to the agro-ecological zone (AEZ) concept in combination with the marginality constraints, so-called 'marginal agro-ecological zones' (M-AEZ). It was found that both large marginal agricultural areas and numerous agricultural practices are available for industrial crop cultivation on European marginal agricultural lands. These results help to further describe the suitability of industrial crops for the development of social-ecologically friendly MALLIS in Europe.
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Entidade financiadora
European Commission
Programa de financiamento
H2020
Número da atribuição
727698