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search.filters.applied.f.access: openAccess × Author: Aurbacher, Joachim × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2019 × DDC: 630 × Type: Text × WGL Institute: ZALF ×

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    The MiLA tool: Modeling greenhouse gas emissions and cumulative energy demand of energy crop cultivation in rotation
    (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2016) Peter, Christiane; Specka, Xenia; Aurbacher, Joachim; Peter Kornatz, Peter Kornatz; Herrmann, Christiane; Heiermann, Monika; Müller, Janine; Nendel, Claas
    Crop rotations are part of current agricultural practice, since they and their effects can contribute to a sustainable agricultural cropping system. However, in current Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies, crop rotation effects are insufficiently considered, since these effects are difficult to measure. LCA studies from crop production typically take only one vegetation period into account. As a result, the consideration of how the assessed crop is influenced by the previous crop (crop rotation effects) including: (1) nutrient carryover, (2) reduction in operational requirements and (3) different intensity and timing of farming activities, is outside of the system boundary. However, ignoring these effects may lead to incorrect interpretation of LCA results and consequently to poor agricultural management as well as poor policy decisions. A new LCA tool called the “Model for integrative Life Cycle Assessment in Agriculture (MiLA)” is presented in this work. MiLA has been developed to assess GHG emissions and cumulative energy demands (CED) of cropping systems by taking the characteristics of crop cultivation in rotation into account. This tool enables the user to analyze cropping systems at farm level in order to identify GHG mitigation options and energy-efficient cropping systems. The tool was applied to a case study, including two crop rotations in two different regions in Germany with the goal of demonstrating the effectiveness of this tool on LCA results. Results show that including crop rotation effects can influence the GHG emission result of the individual crop by − 34% up to + 99% and the CED by − 16 up to + 89%. Expanding the system boundary by taking the whole crop rotation into account as well as providing the results based on different functional units improves LCA of energy crop production and helps those making the assessment to draw a more realistic picture of the interactions between crops while increasing the reliability of the LCA results.
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    Impact of energy crop rotation design on multiple aspects of resource efficiency
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2016) Peter, Christiane; Glemnitz, Michael; Winter, Katharina; Kornatz, Peter; Müller, Janine; Heiermann, Monika; Aurbacher, Joachim
    Biogas production can cause environmental problems due to a biased alignment of one energy crop used as a feedstock, e.g., maize in Germany. Diversification of crop rotations and resource-efficient management can be the key to sustainable crop management. Four crop rotations on eight sites across Germany were evaluated in terms of their resource efficiency (area use, energy, and economic efficiency) to derive options. Analysis revealed high variation in all indicators under review, with a high variance explanation by the interaction between crop rotation and regional characteristics. Furthermore, results indicate that high area-specific methane yields do not equate to high energy efficiency. Crop management adaptation is a useful tool for optimizing resource efficiency.