High Accuracy Site-Specific Secondary Data for Mechanical Field Operations to Support LCA Studies

The aim of the study was to quantify site-specific secondary data of mechanical field operations for EU barley cropping. By the model ENVIAM v2, each operation was subdivided into 13 working times and, for each of them, the amount of total consuming inputs (fuel, lubricant and AdBlue®) and emissions of exhaust gases into the atmosphere were calculated. The amount of partial consuming inputs (machinery mass) and emissions of heavy metals into the soil were also quantified. Three scenarios (S) were identified: S1 = 50 ha, S2 = 100 ha, S3 = 200 ha, with the same: agronomic conditions, operations sequence, type of machines used and cropping inputs. For each scenario, two barley ideotypes were analyzed: (i) currently in use (BarNow, 2018) and (ii) future (BarPlus, 2030). BarPlus is characterized by: (i) higher grain and straw yield, Nitrogen fertilization rate and machinery Effective Field Capacity, (ii) use of TIER 5 fuel engines, (iii) lower specific minimum fuel consumption. BarNow inputs (kg·ha−1) were: fuel = 67 ÷ 74, lubricant = 0.56 ÷ 0.73, mass = 7.9 ÷ 8.8. BarPlus inputs (kg·ha−1) were: fuel = 55 ÷ 60, lubricant = 0.53 ÷ 0.69, AdBlue® = 2.8 ÷ 3.0, mass = 7.2 ÷ 8.0. The highest fuel and mass consumptions were in both cases related to tillage operations.