SWEEDHART – Separation of weeds during harvesting and
hygienisation to enhance crop productivity in the long term
“Separation of weeds during harvesting and hygienisation to enhance crop productivity in the long term” with a concurrent benefit via utilization of the harvested biomass is the aim of the project “Sweedhart”. Therefore, new chaff treatment measures will be investigated so that the germination ability of seeds will be inactivated or chaff which contains most of the weed seeds from the field for further utilization will be made available.
Objectives:
- proof-of-concept for hygienisation of weeds on the harvester
- machine adaption of the harvester for improved weed handling and hygienisation
- validation of all weed reduction measures by field tests of the preferred concept
- analysis of a concept with partial harvest where the grain is collected, the straw is laid down on the field and the chaff will be handled in innovative manners (evaluation of generating added value by extracting valuable substances from chaff)
- analysis of the concept of a total harvest without separation on the harvester
- evaluation of an optimal utilization of byproducts (straw, chaff, weeds) for energetic, material and feed use
- mechanical treatment of all fractions to make them usable for energetic, material or feed purposes
All proposed measures will be assessed, also in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. Generally, the investigation of new concepts in terms of applicability, sustainability and added value generation in the field of agriculture will be performed.
Outcomes:
- A catalogue of successful and sustainable measures to reduce the weed pollution on the fields to counteract the growing problems of herbicide resistant and invasive weeds
- Strategies to implement the preferred measures beyond the state-of-the-art
- The measures include a significant potential to intensify sustainably agriculture in terms of gaining so far unused biomass fractions for energetic, material or feed use in order to follow the route towards a bio-based economy.
