Industrial Crops and Products 84 (2016) 176–188 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops and Products journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Economic and energy analysis of different systems for giant reed (Arundo donax L.) harvesting in Italy and Spain Luigi Pari a,∗ , Maria Dolores Curt b , Javier Sánchez b , Enrico Santangelo a a Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA)—Unità di ricerca per l’ingegneria agraria, via della pascolare 16, 00016 Monterotondo, Roma, Italy b Dpt. Producción Agraria, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Avda. Complutense s/n 28040, Madrid, Spain a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 29 October 2015 Received in revised form 22 January 2016 Accepted 24 January 2016 Keywords: Biomass harvesting Arundo donax Self-propelled forage harvester Baling a b s t r a c t The exploitation of energy crops requires the assessment of their sustainability in terms of both eco- nomic and environmental cost. Among the agronomic practices applied for giant reed (Arundo donax L.) production, harvesting may weigh for a relative high percentage on the overall balance. Till now, conven- tional and modified machinery have been used for the production of different type of biomass (shredded, chipped, baled). In the present study an economic and energy analysis of harvesting systems and biomass transport has been conducted considering three actual cases of study representative of common harvest- ing systems in Italy and Spain: single-pass (chipping and loading) and two passes (mowing plus chipping and loading or crushing and windrowing plus baling). The aim of the work was to evaluate the cost- effectiveness and the environmental sustainability of the different options. The number of operations (single or two passes) did not weigh on the final result, and the economic criterion did not coincide with the energy one. The cost of harvesting for the single-pass system was the lowest (17.9 D t dm −1 ), but the economic costs of the whole chain (harvesting and transport) were more convenient for baling, and the energy demand of both systems was similar. Evidence was provided that factors like type of machinery, effective field capacity, yield, moisture content, bulk density and crop uniformity influenced the harvest- ing costs (from both economic and energy viewpoints) and the delivery of the biomass from the field to the first collection point. Therefore, a case-by-case analysis is recommended in order to optimize the logistics of a particular bioenergy plant. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Mechanisation has been recognised as the key point in the devel- opment of dedicated energy crops because of its effect on the economic and energy balance (Angelini et al., 2009). Specifically, harvesting, storing and transport of biomass from energy crops, should be developed, tested and analysed in order to optimize the logistic chain of biomass supply (Kumar and Ileleji, 2009; Curt et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2013; Martelli et al., 2015). Most studies addressing energy crops like the energy grasses have been focused on the pro- duction techniques, whereas the research on the type of equipment for harvesting is less extensive (Bentini and Martelli, 2013). Giant reed (Arundo donax L.) is a perennial grass originating from Eurasia (Hardion et al., 2012), which is widely spread in many areas of Asia, South Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, North ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +39 0690625591. E-mail address: luigi.pari@entecra.it (L. Pari). and South America and Australia (Perdue, 1958; Bell, 1997; Pilu, 2012). Arundo has been proposed as a promising energy crop for lignocellulosic biomass production in Europe (Christou et al., 2002; Lewandowski et al., 2003). Moreover, it has been recently quoted in the European Union Directive 2015/1513 as “non-food cellulosic material”; therefore its cultivation for biofuels can be counted for the national targets of the EU Member States and is not subjected to the 7% limit of the final consumption of energy in transport in 2020. Giant reed is suitable for growing in the Mediterranean region, especially in countries like Italy and Spain, where it could be culti- vated in rainfed and irrigated lands, obtaining high yields in good hydrological conditions (Christou et al., 2002). Arundo plantations in the southern EU regions are usually harvested in wintertime, but recently, summer harvesting was studied (Ragaglini et al., 2014) for evaluating the Arundo potential for biomethane production. Harvesting strategies are determined by several aspects like crop type, biomass moisture content at harvest time, biomass final use, required biomass quality parameters, planning of biomass con- ditioning, type of storage, design of biomass supply to processing http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.01.036 0926-6690/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.