Greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in UK-grown short-day strawberry (Fragaria xananassa Duch) crops

Abstract

SUM M ARYReducing greenhouse gas emissions and optimizing energy consumption are important for mitigating climate change and improving resource use efficiency. Strawberry (Fragaria xananassa Duch) crops are a key component of the UK soft fruit sector and potentially resource-intensive crops. This is the first study to undertake a detailed environmental impact assessment of all methods of UK strawberry production. A total of 14 systems with six additional sub-systems grown for between 1 and 3 years were identified. They were defined by the growing of short-day (Junebearer) or everbearer varieties, organic production, covering with polytunnels or grown in the open, soil-grown (with or without fumigation) or container-grown (with peat or coir substrate) and summer or spring planted. Preharvest, the global warming potential varied between 1·5 and 10·3 t CO 2 equiv/ha/crop or 0·13 and 1·14 t CO 2 equiv/t of class 1 fruit. Key factors included the use of tunnels, mulch and irrigation, sterilization of soil with fumigants and the use of peat substrate. Seasonal crops without covers grown where rotation of sufficient length reduced Verticillium (system 4) were the most efficient. System 4a (that did not use mulch) emitted 0·13 t CO 2 equiv/t of class 1 fruit. A second or third cropping year in soil-grown systems prolonged the effect of mulch and soil fumigants. Greenhouse gases from system 4 (with mulch) averaged 0·30 t CO 2 equiv/t of class 1 fruit after 3 years of cropping compared to 0·63 and 0·36 t CO 2 equiv/t after 1 and 2 years, respectively.

Environmental impacts of organic and conventional agricultural products – Are the differences captured by life cycle assessment?

“…In some studies, organic farming practices were compared with several conventional systems of different intensities (Haas et al, 2001;Cederberg and Flysj€ o, 2004;Casey and Holden, 2006;Williams et al, 2006;Warner et al, 2010;Nemecek et al, 2011a;Alig et al, 2012;Leinonen et al, 2012a,b;Michos et al, 2012;Zafiriou et al, 2012;Abeliotis et al, 2013;Villanueva-Rey et al, 2014). To analyze how products from farming systems that differ substantially are assessed in LCA, we considered only the comparisons between organic agriculture with the highest intensity levels of conventional agriculture.…”

A simplified method for the assessment of carbon balance in agriculture: an application in organic and conventional micro-agroecosystems in a long-term experiment in Tuscany, Italy

“…Audsley (1997), Ceuterick (1998), Kramer et al (1999), Williams et al (2006) and Warner et al (2010) evaluated the emissions from different crops. Other authors estimated emissions from different farming system, such as Flessa et al, 2002;de Boer, 2003;Cederberg and Mattsson, 2000;Haas et al, 2001 who compared organic and conventional farming systems.…”

“…Most of the above-mentioned research works were conducted using: i) complex methodologies, such as the life cycle analysis (LCA) Assessment to examine the contribution from different emission factors (Audsley, 1997;Ceuterick, 1998;Kramer et al, 1999;Williams et al, 2006;De Backer et al, 2009;Warner et al, 2010;Venkat, 2012); and ii) complex mathematical models to assess the carbon balance (Grace et al, 2006;Küstermann et al, 2008;Stockmann et al, 2013). However, it is also possible to calculate GHG emissions using simplified methods (Flessa et al, 2002;Lal, 2004).…”

Rural Development Program measures on cultivated land in Europe to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions – regional “hotspots” and priority measures

“…Leip et al [11], for example, developed a modelling framework that links the large-scale economic model for Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact (CAPRI) [101] with the bio-geochemistry model DenitrificationÀDecomposition (DNDC) to simulate greenhouse gas fluxes, carbon stock changes and the nitrogen budget of agricultural soils in Europe. Tzilivakis et al [5,6] and Warner et al [12] have used combinations of models (such as Simulation of Nitrogen Dynamics In Arable Land (SUNDIAL) [13] and Pesticide risk Environmental Management for Agriculture (p-EMA) [14À16]) to assess the environmental impacts of sugar beet and strawberry crops in the UK, using a scenario approach to capture the key spatial differences and consequent impacts.…”

“…This is often done by linking farm output or input to environmental indicators such as nutrient or energy balances [17]. A further adaptation of the approach adopted by Tzilivakis et al [5,6], Warner et al [12] and Defra [18] develops the concept of "Regional Variation Categories" (RVCs), that define environmental risk areas for individual pollutant pathways at the 1 km 2 resolution. Spatially explicit emission factors are then allocated to each RVC, enabling coverage of impact to extend over the European scale for individual RDP measures.…”