Environmental performance of animal feed production from Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz: Influence of crop management practices under Mediterranean conditions

Sara Martinez, Sergio Alvarez, Anibal Capuano and Maria del Mar Delgado

Agricultural Systems, 2020, vol. 177, issue C

Abstract: Animal feeding has been identified to be a key factor in environmental sustainability. For this reason, by carrying out a life cycle assessment, this investigation is focused on studying the environmental performance of the production of Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz as feedstock for animal meal in Spanish Mediterranean soils. Experiments in five non-irrigated plots were conducted applying different crop management practices: herbicide pre-emergence (P1), herbicide post-emergence (P2), P mineral fertilization (P3), P+N mineral fertilization (P4), and compost fertilization (P5). The production of animal meal press cake consisted of two processes, seed production and seed pressing. Results showed that seed production represents, on average, 88% of the total impacts for all of the treatments. The main differences were allocated to crop management practices. In systems P1 and P2, where no fertilizers were added, the field operation of soil tillage is the main responsible for the environmental impacts, mainly due to diesel fuel consumption and the exhaust gas emissions generated by engine tractors. On the other hand, in P3, P4 and P5, the fertilization process contributed significantly to the increase of the environmental impacts. However, it has to be noted that compost fertilization could exhibit less environmental impacts than mineral fertilization if avoided burdens were considered. In this sense, the application of compost could be regarded as a way of promoting waste valorization.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment; Oilseed crop; Seed production; Herbicides; Mineral fertilization; Compost (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X19310029
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agisys:v:177:y:2020:i:c:s0308521x19310029

DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102717

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Systems is currently edited by J.W. Hansen, P.K. Thornton and P.B.M. Berentsen

More articles in Agricultural Systems from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().