Sustainability Estimation of Oat:Pea Intercrops from the Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment Perspective

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12220%2F21%3A43904104" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12220/21:43904104 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/11/12/2433/htm" target="_blank" >https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/11/12/2433/htm</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11122433" target="_blank" >10.3390/agronomy11122433</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Sustainability Estimation of Oat:Pea Intercrops from the Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment Perspective

Original language description

Winter cereal:legume intercropping is considered a sustainable arable farming system not only in temperate regions but also in Mediterranean environments. Previous studies have shown that with suitable crop stand composition, high grain yield can be achieved. In this study, a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the influence of sowing ratio and nitrogen (N) fertilization on grain nitrogen yield of oat (Avena sativa L.) and pea (Pisum sativum L.) in intercrops was performed to find the optimal design to achieve low environmental impact. This study compared the environmental impact of oat:pea intercrops using agricultural LCA. Monocrops of oat and pea and substitutive intercrops, which were fertilized with different levels of N, were compared. The system boundaries included all the processes from cradle to farm gate. Mass-based (grain N yield) and area-based (land demand for generating the same grain N yield) functional units were used. The results covered the impact categories related to the agricultural LCAs. The ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint and Endpoint characterization model was used for the data expression. According to the results, an unfertilized combination of oat and pea (50%:50%) had the lowest environmental impact in comparison with the other 14 assessed variants and selected impact categories. In the assessed framework, pea monocrops or intensively fertilized oat monocrops can also be considered as alternatives with relatively low impact on the environment. However, an appropriate grain N yield must be reached to balance the environmental impact resulting from the fertilizer inputs. The production and use of fertilizers had the greatest impact on the environment within the impact categories climate change, eutrophication, and ecotoxicity. The results indicated that high fertilizer inputs did not necessarily cause the highest environmental impact. In this respect, the achieved grain N yield level, the choice of allocation approach, the functional unit, and the data expression approach played dominant roles.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

40101 - Agriculture

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Agronomy

ISSN

2073-4395

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

11

Issue of the periodical within the volume

12

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

2433

UT code for WoS article

000735732800001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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