Published February 23, 2022 | Version v1
Dataset Open

Towards identifying industrial crop types and associated agronomies to improve biomass production from marginal lands in Europe

Creators

  • 1. Dipartimento di Scienze Veterinarie, University of Messina, Polo Universitario dell'Annunziata, 98168 Messina, Italy
  • 2. Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 75 Iera Odos, 11855 Athens, Greece
  • 3. Centre for the Development of Renewable Energies. CEDER-CIEMAT. Autovía de Navarra A-15, Salida 56, 42290 Lubia, Spain
  • 4. Institute of Bioenergy Crops and Sugar Beet NAAS, 03141 Kyiv, Ukraine
  • 5. Biobased Resources in the Bioeconomy (340b), Institute of Crop Science, University of Hohenheim, Fruwirthstr. 23, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany
  • 6. Latvian State Forest Research Institute SILAVA, 2169 Salaspils, Latvia
  • 7. University Paris Saclay, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, National Institute of technology for life, food and environmental sciences, UMR ECOSYS, Ecotoxicology team, 78026 Versailles, France
  • 8. Dipartimento di Agricoltura, Alimentazione e Ambiente (Di3A), University of Catania, Via Valdisavoia 5, 95123 Catania, Italy
  • 9. MEtRICs, Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia da Biomassa, NOVA School of Science and Technology | FCT NOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Caparica, 2829‐516 Caparica, Portugal
  • 10. Center for Renewable Energy Sources, Biomass Department, 19009 Pikermi Attikis, Greece

Description

Background: 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.

Results: 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.

Conclusions: 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 in order to validate yield performances, and thereby to inform on the best industrial crop options.

Files

Files (37.5 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:579bb797bd052ea77d312675d785f349
37.5 kB Download

Additional details

Funding

European Commission
MAGIC - Marginal lands for Growing Industrial Crops: Turning a burden into an opportunity 727698