Abstract
Burning crop residues is frequently used by Romanian land users to clean agricultural fields after crop harvest for ease in post-harvest soil tillage. Huge amounts of crop residues biomass, on very large areas, were burned in Romania in the last twenty years, as compared to other countries. There are several reasons (e.g. the lack of equipment to gather the crop residues and to transport and store them, the diminishing of the livestock after 1990, the absence of other alternatives, especially in the 1990s, but also the lack of information regarding the good practices) that are advocated to support the use of this method. However, this method is not a sustainable one since it can cause many environmental damages, especially related to soil properties (physical, chemical and biological), greenhouse gas emission and crop yields. Contrary to the above stated, crop residues' addition to the soil may restore damaged soil structure, improve aggregate stability, soil water retention, soil fertility, increase total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) etc. The purpose of this paper is to make a multicriteria analyze of the effects of crop residue management on the soil, agricultural productivity and environment. At the same time, the use of crop residues biomass as a source of energy is presented as an alternative, given its potential ability to offset fossil fuels and reduce CO2 emissions.
Highlights
Open field burning of crop residues is a simple method for land users to clean agricultural land after crop harvest to facilitate soil tillage
There are some reasons which have always been evocated by the land users to justify the field burning crop residues: (1) the lack of equipment to gather the crop residues and to transport and store them, especially for the small and medium farmers; (2) the diminishing of the livestock after 1990 (NIS, 2013) when Romania started the transition to the market economy; (3) the lake of information regarding the good practices especially for the small farmers; (4) the lake of interest for an alternative use of crop residues, especially during the period 1990-2000 or afterwards; (5) the argument brought up by most farmers that the soil tillage practice is of good quality if the crop residues are burned before
In Romania, large amounts of crop residues are burned in open field
Summary
Open field burning of crop residues is a simple method for land users to clean agricultural land after crop harvest to facilitate soil tillage. There are some reasons which have always been evocated by the land users to justify the field burning crop residues: (1) the lack of equipment to gather the crop residues and to transport and store them, especially for the small and medium farmers; (2) the diminishing of the livestock after 1990 (NIS, 2013) when Romania started the transition to the market economy; (3) the lake of information regarding the good practices especially for the small farmers; (4) the lake of interest for an alternative use of crop residues, especially during the period 1990-2000 or afterwards; (5) the argument brought up by most farmers (small or big farmers) that the soil tillage practice is of good quality if the crop residues are burned before All these reasons are not sustainable, so the land managers need to know the effect of their management on soil ecosystem functioning, in addition to the effect of environmental factors beyond their control (Franzluebbers, 2002). The distribution of agricultural monitoring sample plots, level I by class of soil humus content (Dumitru et al, 2000)
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