Evaluation of New Harvesting Methods to Reduce Weeds on Arable Fields and Collect a New Feedstock

Glasner, Christoph; Vieregge, Christopher; Robert, Josef; Fenselau, Johanna; Bitarafan, Zahra; Andreasen, Christian

doi:10.3390/en12091688

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Evaluation of New Harvesting Methods to Reduce Weeds on Arable Fields and Collect a New Feedstock

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Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT, Osterfelder Str. 3, 46047 Oberhausen, Germany

CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH, Muehlenwinkel 1, 33428 Harsewinkel, Germany

Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Højbakkegaard Allé 13, DK-2630 Taastrup, Denmark

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Energies 2019, 12(9), 1688; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091688

Received: 12 January 2019 / Revised: 23 March 2019 / Accepted: 30 April 2019 / Published: 5 May 2019

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from 26th European Biomass Conference & Exhibition (EUBCE 2018))

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Abstract

During harvesting, grain, straw, and chaff with weed seeds are separated. The chaff is returned to the fields, resulting in weed problems in the subsequent crops. We estimated the fraction of weed seeds a combine harvester could potentially harvest and used various methods to collect the chaff and treat it with heat to kill weed seeds or reduce weed seed germination. Chaff with weed seeds was placed on top of the straw and afterwards baled with the straw as a method to remove weed seeds from the field. We exposed chaff with weed seeds to exhaust gas with various temperatures and durations to study whether this heating method could be used to reduce the input of viable weed seeds to the soil during harvesting. By collecting the shed weed seeds during the growing season, we estimated that a combine harvester could potentially harvest 41%, 11%, and 100% of the seeds produced in the growing season by Bromus hordeaceus, Cirsium arvense, and Galium aparine, respectively. When the chaff was placed on top of the straw, 45% of the weed seeds stayed in the chaff fraction on top of the straw swath after one day, 35% got into the straw swath, and 20% past through the swath to the ground. Therefore, baling straw with chaff placed on the top only had a limited effect on reducing weed seed infestation. The study showed that thermal weed seed control during harvesting could potentially be applicable and incorporated in an integrated weed management approach. View Full-Text

Keywords: agricultural residues; chaff; combine harvester; environmental impact; feedstock; Harvest Weed Seed Control; HWSC

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Glasner, C.; Vieregge, C.; Robert, J.; Fenselau, J.; Bitarafan, Z.; Andreasen, C. Evaluation of New Harvesting Methods to Reduce Weeds on Arable Fields and Collect a New Feedstock. Energies 2019, 12, 1688. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091688

AMA Style

Glasner C, Vieregge C, Robert J, Fenselau J, Bitarafan Z, Andreasen C. Evaluation of New Harvesting Methods to Reduce Weeds on Arable Fields and Collect a New Feedstock. Energies. 2019; 12(9):1688. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091688

Chicago/Turabian Style

Glasner, Christoph, Christopher Vieregge, Josef Robert, Johanna Fenselau, Zahra Bitarafan, and Christian Andreasen. 2019. "Evaluation of New Harvesting Methods to Reduce Weeds on Arable Fields and Collect a New Feedstock" Energies 12, no. 9: 1688. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091688

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