Performance evaluation of digestate spreading machines in vineyards and citrus orchards: preliminary trials
This research was carried out to evaluate a local biogas plant's solid fraction digestate spreading in a citrus orchard and vineyard. Three spreaders were tested: a broadcast manure spreader in the citrus orchard, and two cylindrical-shaped spreaders in the vineyard; the first one working in br...
Saved in:
Published in | Heliyon Vol. 6; no. 6; p. e04257 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Elsevier Ltd
01.06.2020
Elsevier |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | This research was carried out to evaluate a local biogas plant's solid fraction digestate spreading in a citrus orchard and vineyard. Three spreaders were tested: a broadcast manure spreader in the citrus orchard, and two cylindrical-shaped spreaders in the vineyard; the first one working in broadcast configuration, the second one in localised configuration. Experimental tests assessed effective work time, mean work speed, digestate flow rate and longitudinal and transverse spreading uniformity. In the citrus orchard, the digestate was mainly spread in the centre of the inter-row (around 66%), with low variability between inter-rows (coefficient of variation (CV) equal to 2.7%) and much higher variability within inter-rows (CV = 31.4%). The effective work time was about 28% of total field time and real work capacity was about 0.96 ha h−1. In the vineyard, broadcast spreading released more on the right compared to the left (ratio 1.74) due to distributor disc rotation, whereas localised spreading was more uniform. Overall, variability between inter-rows had CV = 15.1% and within inter-rows CV = 33.3%. Real work capacity was about 0.16 ha h−1 for broadcast spreading and 0.26 ha h−1 for localised spreading. A preliminary economic evaluation, based on sub-contractor tariffs, produced the mean tariff for transaction and spreading costs of digestate in farms near the biogas plant.
Agriculture; Industrial engineering; Biomass; Agricultural economics; Agricultural engineering; Organic farming; Waste treatment; Organic soil improver; Sustainable fertilisation; Manure distribution; Distribution costs; Working capacity |
---|---|
Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2405-8440 2405-8440 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04257 |