traditional farmland habitat [57] both in summer and winter [58].
SRC is moreover strongly influenced by the landscape into which
the crop is introduced [59,60]. For highly mobile animals such as
birds, the landscape composition plays a central role in terms of
plantations tenure [61].
Maize cultivation will always have the problems linked to the
landscape biodiversity and the ethics related to the fact that a food
crop is used to produce biomass for energy use. The use of the land
for food or for bioenergy use is a debated question [62] and at this
purpose perennial lignocellulose energy crops as SRC and vSRC may
be a good compromise to balance the bioenergy and the food
production.
5. Conclusions
This study has been carried out in north Italy where, in the last
years, many farmers introduced crops to produce biomass for energy
use in their agricultural planes. Thanks to the governmental
incentives, to enhance the use of renewable energy, the farmers
decided to cultivate more maize (instead of planting poplars),
especially for electrical energy production.
In contrast, the results obtained in this experimentation highlight
that the poplar plantations, independently from the cycle
length (3 or 6 years), show an higher energetic ratio (about 3 points
higher) and a lower CO2 emissions (about 2.5 time) compared to
maize cultivation. The better energetic and environmental results
in vSRC and SRC cultivation are especially due to a minor energy
input for the crop management.
Moreover, the poplar plantations presence enhance the landscape
biodiversity.
On the contrary, maize cultivation requires lower manpower.
The SRC mechanization improvement will play a fundamental
role to reduce the required manpower: at this point, SRC could
really become competitive.