Abstract
Introduction: silage corn and forage sorghum are two suitable summer crop in Golestan province. Due to limited water resources and the optimal performance of sorghum as a drought resistant crop, there have been opened new horizons in feed production. The comparison between energy consumed by crops is one way to prioritizes various agronomic production in each area. Materials and method: to conduct this survey two crops (silage corn and sorghum) were selected. The reason for this choosing was the numerous similarities of these two plants (including similar planting date, farm operation and consumptions). Accordingly interviews with various farmers (15 and 20 farmers was selected to filling in questionnaire for silage corn and sorghum respectively in Gorgan suburb) for silage corn and sorghum was done and needed data collected for machinery, consumable inputs including seeds, fertilizer, fuel and pesticides in two crops. After that date was analyzed in three part, fuel consumption, consumed fuel and global warming potential base on carbon dioxide equivalent. Results and Discussion: the most input energy in silage corn and forage sorghum was 23.2 and 24.7 percent respectively based on fertilizer consumption. Also, the highest direct input energy in corn silage and forage sorghum was 3.27 and 4.31 respectively that related to fuel. The output energy in forage sorghum was more than silage corn, such that the output energy in forage sorghum was 56.315 GJ/ha more than silage corn. The main reason for this observation is the high yield of forage sorghum fields. The ratio of output to input energy in spring corn and forage sorghum were calculated 3.4 and 6.15 respectively. In both crop the highest global warming potential (GWP) was related to nitrogen fertilizer and fuel consumption. The highest and the lowest global warming potential respectively observed in silage corn and forage sorghum (with 1845.9 kg CO2/ha and 1729 kg CO2/ha). Conclusions: the energy input and greenhouse gas emissions in spring corn was more than forage sorghum that due to more agricultural operations (such as herbicides and pesticides consumption), in this respect the cultivation of forage sorghum has minimal environmental impacts. In both crop the consumption of fuel and fertilizer constitute the high percent of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. So that, the use of devices that reduce fuel consumption is recommended, also need for research and investigation on crop rotation and nitrogen fixation plants was revealed.
Published Version
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