Mechanical Harvesting of Marginal Land and Agroforestry Field: New Insights from Safflower for Bio-Product Production

Abstract

Considering the increase in market requests for bio-products, it is necessary to study the possibility of cultivating industrial crops in areas still untapped to extend the total cultivation surface, reducing land competition with food crops. With this aim in mind, we studied the harvesting performance and cost, and seed losses of Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) cultivation during two growing seasons and in three different locations: (A) an agroforestry field, (B) a marginal field and (C) a dedicated field utilized as a control. The overall efficiency of the cultivation system was higher in location C in respect to the other two fields. The yield was 12–22% and 21–26% higher in location C compared to locations B and A, respectively, while seed losses were 40–33% and 28–50% lower in C compared to locations A and B, as well as the total harvesting costs, which were 45% and 31–35% lower in location C compared to locations A and B, respectively. Despite this, the results highlighted how the reduction in cultivation efficiency given by limiting factors was lower compared to that of other crops, highlighting the possibility of cultivating Safflower for bio-products’ production on alternative lands.

Keywords

• industrial crops
• alternative cultivations lands
• European directives
• land competition
• mechanical harvesting