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Imprint
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in energy crop production by cultivating winter cover crops and permanent crops
Project
Project code: 22026317
Contract period: 01.05.2019
- 30.04.2022
Budget: 110,523 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research
Keywords: biodiversity, crop rotation, cover crops, renewable ressources
Cultivation of winter cover crops and of permanent crops offers the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in energy crop production. Eventually, soil carbon sequestration by building up soil organic carbon may even be possible, thereby making an additional contribution to mitigate climate change. The proposed research project TAWIRA will investigate the potential to reduce greenhouse gases emissions by alteration of crop species and crop rotations, taking also into account other important factors such as economic returns. For this purpose, the index of relative agronomical suitability (IrA) established before will be extended to include the component "greenhouse gases", which has not yet been considered. IrA is designed as a transparent tool for decision support in agricultural practice and includes important parameters for energy crop assessment. More specifically, the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cultivating winter cover crops in a double cropping system with maize and by cultivating permanent crops will be quantified based on data from two multi-year field trials already completed (Menke 2011, NiCo experiment). Ideally, a win-win situation will be created in which the farmer will not have any additional costs due to reducing greenhouse gas emissions but advantages such as increased soil fertility, erosion protection, water conservation, reduced fertilizer inputs and associated costs.
Section overview
Subjects
- Crop Production
- Renewable Resources
- Climate Change
