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CYNARA CARDUNCULUS L. AS A NEW CROP FOR MARGINAL AND SET-ASIDE LANDS

Objective

Cynara cardunculus L. is a perennial plant perfectly adapted to the arid land of the south of Europe. Biomass productivity is rather high, 20-30 tons dry matter per ha. In this project, the following items are considered:

- Dry biomass production in typical set-aside lands of 5 different countries of the south of Europe (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) taking into account different culture conditions.

- Green forage and dry biomass harvesting tests.

- Soil-plant water relations study including the determination of the WUE (water use efficiency).

- Genotype collection from commercial cultivars and wild populations and estimation of their potential productivity.

- Green forage production during Autumn and Winter season and its influence on final biomass production. A specific study of ruminant nutrition will be carried out in order to evaluate the nutritive value of this forage. Yields on the order of 50 t/ha of green forage would be expected.

- Paper pulp production from branches and stalks after 3 different methods:
- Classical kraft procedure to be realized in Portugal.
- ASAM procedure to be realized in Germany.
- In-situ soda generation procedure from lime and sodium carbonate precursors to be realized in France.

- Biomass transformation yields into heat or electricity by means of IMW AFBC (Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Combustor) with information about the emission gases and volatile hydrocarbons. An optimization study of the pretreatments and fluidization capacity of this solid fuel will be included.

Considering the whole production-transformation as an integrated system its components impact on environment will be studied, mainly with regard to mineral nutrients, soil organic matter and carbon dioxide balance.

Finally, a feasibility study of the mentioned systems (production-transformation) will be done, and possible cost levels will be estimated for every product from Cyanara cardunculus biomass.

Call for proposal

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Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID
EU contribution
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Address
AV. COMPLUTENSE 7
28040 MADRID
Spain

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Total cost
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Participants (5)