AgroFossilFree - Globe artichoke genetic variability for residual biomass production as renewable resources of energy in South Italy

Allgemeine Beschreibung

Focusing on energy consumption of the agricultural sector and using renewable resources of energy have high importance for sustainable agriculture, minimizing also the problems for disposal. Besides the crops itself, large quantities of residues of agriculture are generated every year. These residues constitute a major part of the total annual production of biomass and could be an important source of energy both for domestic as well as industrial purposes. Among the most spread crops in southern Italy, attention has been focused on the residual biomass of globe artichoke, since the marketable heads, used for human nutrition, represents about the 20% of total biomass, and after their harvest a high amount of biomass remains in the fields. In addition, previous studies showed that globe artichoke crop residues (leaves+stalks) could be used to obtain lignocellulosic biomass for pellets production yielding good quantity of solid biofuel. In this work, data concerning the production of residual biomass (leaves, stalks and not-marketable heads) of 12 globe artichoke accessions were evaluated. Results showed, on average of the accessions, that crop for head production yielded more than 15 t ha-1 of DM of residual biomass and considering that the land involved in this cultivation is in restricted areas of Apulia, Sicily and Sardinia, the use of globe artichoke biomass residues to yield bioenergy could have the advantage to reduce also the costs of transport.