Life cycle environmental impacts of cucumber and tomato production in open-field and greenhouse

Abstract

Cucumber and tomato are commonly produced commercially in both open-field (OF) and greenhouse (GH) throughout Iran. This study was conducted to assess the environmental impacts of cucumber and tomato production in both OF and GH using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The primary data was collected from 47 GH holders and 211 OF farmers in Fars province, Iran. The results based on mass basis (one tonne) indicated that cucumber produced in GH had a lower environmental impacts than OF cucumber production due to higher yield and less total energy input. On the contrary, GH tomato production had more environmental impacts than tomato produced in OF mainly due to natural gas used in heating system in GHs and more diesel fuel needed. Comparing the two crops on a per hectare basis demonstrates that GH cucumber production was more environmental friendly than GH tomato production in the all impact categories. Diesel fuel and natural gas were the major contributors to the all impact categories in GHs and electricity and N-based fertilizers had the highest contribution to all impact categories in OFs. Total CExD indicator for production of one tonne cucumber and tomato production in GH were 2159.19 and 1934.14 MJ eq, respectively. However, the highest and the lowest values of CExD indicator were related to cucumber and tomato production in OF as 2649.59 and 1222.69 MJ eq. Keywords: Cucumber, Tomato, Life cycle assessment, Cumulative exergy demand, Greenhouse, Open-field