Miscanthus harvesting technologies and computer-assisted cost estimation of biomass production

Abstract

The purpose of the paper was to determine the costs of production of biomass from Miscanthus, for various harvesting technologies. The study includes harvest in the form of chaff and compacted straw, on a 10 ha plantation. The scope of work includes estimated calculations for six different variants, computed with the application “BiOBkalkulator”. The biomass production costs were very diverse and ranged from PLN 80t-1 (PLN 1613ha-1) for the small-scale streamlined harvesting technology, to PLN 258t-1 (PLN 5,158ha-1) for the self-propelled forage harvesting technology, using own machinery (IVa). The costs of harvesting and transporting Miscanthus constitute from approx. 41 to over 80% of the biomass production costs, depending on the variant used.