D5.1 – Inventory on available harvesting technology for industrial crops on marginal lands

CREA activities in the Magic project are mainly concentrated in task 5.1: harvesting systems and post-harvest handling. The goal of this task is to spread knowledge on harvest systems for industrial crops to be cultivated on marginal lands and in different zones of Europe. To achieve the task objectives, the first activities performed by CREA is the creation of an inventory in form of deliverable (D 5.1) on the currently available harvesting technologies for the twenty crops that have been selected from the magic crop database. The inventory that is presented in this document gathers information obtained from direct data collection in previous projects, scientific literature review and market analysis on the current existing technologies used to harvest non-food crops in marginal lands. The document is organized in fact-sheets representing an “easy-to-find” and “easy-to-use” instrument for final users (e.g. farmers, industries), providing a rapid identification of the principal mechanized harvesting solutions for a specific crop, according to the final use of the biomass. For each crop a traffic light is included in the general information to provide indications about the status of knowledge on harvest technologies: green light - high level of knowledge on mechanical harvesting, based on scientific evidences; yellow light - medium level of knowledge on mechanical harvesting, based on practical evidences but not yet scientifically proven; red light - low level of knowledge on mechanical harvesting, based mainly on market analysis and manufacturer assumptions.