The Energy Effectiveness Of Crops In Crop Rotation Under Different Soil Tillage Systems

Abstract

The paper identifies and compares the energy balance of winter wheat, spring barley and white mustard – all grown in crop rotation under different tillage conditions. The field trial included the conventional tillage (CT) method, minimum tillage (MT) and a system with no tillage (NT). The energy inputs included both the direct and indirect energy component. Energy outputs are evaluated as gross calorific value (gross heating value of phytomass dry matter) of the primary product and the total harvested production. The energy effectiveness (energy output: energy input) was selected for evaluation. The greatest energy effectiveness for the primary product was established as 6.35 for barley, 6.04 for wheat and 3.68 for mustard; in the case of total production, it was 9.82 for barley, 10.08 for wheat and 9.72 for mustard. When comparing the different tillage conditions, the greatest energy effectiveness was calculated for the evaluated crops under the MT operation and represented the primary product of wheat at 6.49, barley at 6.69 and mustard at 3.92. The smallest energy effectiveness for the primary product was found in wheat 5.77 and barley 6.10 under the CT option; it was 3.55 for mustard under the option of NT. Throughout the entire cropping pattern, the greatest energy effectiveness was established under the minimum tillage option – 5.70 for the primary product and 10.47 for the total production. On the other hand, the smallest values were calculated under CT – 5.22 for the primary product and 9.71 for total production.

Productivity of crop rotation measured as energy produced by included plants: a review

“…Gross calorific value of the total biomass was 175.35 GJ ha -1 for winter wheat, 149.11 GJ ha -1 for barley and 87.27 GJ ha -1 for white mustard. Winter wheat also had the highest grain and residue yields (Strašil, Vach, & Smutný, 2015).…”

“…Energy difference between the energy output and the energy input (both direct and indirect) is called net energy, and it has been studied extensively in the world. Besides, energy intensity (yield against energy input) and energy ratio (output energy against input energy) are also widely studied (Hülsbergen, Feil, & Diepenbrock, 2002;Zentner et al, 2004;Strašil, Vach, & Smutný, 2015).…”

Reduction of anthropogenic loading on an agroecosystem by increasing its energy efficiency

“…Саме такий підхід застосовують у біологічному землеробстві. Зменшення навантаження на агроекосистему шляхом мінімізіції або припинення застосування хімічних методів захисту рослин також зменшує витрати пального, економічні витрати, витрати людської праці, зношування техніки, що, у свою чергу, зменшує енерговитрати під час вирощування сільськогосподарських культур (Pimentel et al, 1983;Strašil et al, 2015;Tinde et al, 2017).…”

Yield and quality of winter wheat, depending on crop rotation and soil tillage

“…It is reported that one of the main reasons why farmers do not want to grow pulses is unstable and more variable yield in comparison to non-legume crops in Europe (Cernay et al, 2015). Traditional soil tillage helps to limit harmful organisms like wheat leaf diseases (Bankina et al, 2018) and weeds (Ausmane, Melngalvis, & Ruža, 2017), but is more time and energy consuming if compared to minimum soil tillage treatments (Strašil, Vach, & Smutný, 2015). In different studies, contradictory results are reported on advantages of soil tillage method (traditional or reduced) to ensure a higher yield and/or quality of wheat (e.g.…”