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Life cycle assessment of organic and mineral fertilizers in a crop sequence of cauliflower and tomato
Quirós, R.; Villalba, G.; Gabarrell, X. & Muñoz, P.
Abstract
This study presents a life cycle assessment of a
crop sequence of cauliflower and tomato that is subjected
to three different fertilization treatments; the crops were
cultivated in a Mediterranean region. The main objective of
this study is the assessment of organic and mineral fertilizers
that are applied to a crop sequence of tomato and
cauliflower. Two allocation procedures that are based on
the crop cultivation time and the degree of nitrogen mineralization
were implemented to allocate the compost
burden to the crops. The results indicated that the crops
fertilized with home compost achieved the best environmental
performance in all impact categories, regardless of
the allocation methods, with the exception of marine
eutrophication and terrestrial acidification. The comparison
of the impact (kg eq. of pollutant/day) on the entire horticultural
cycle with the individual crops indicates that
cycle yielded the least amount of impact among the
assessed categories. The crops that were fertilized with the
home compost using the allocation method, which is based
on the degree of nitrogen in the soil, exhibited the least
impact value among all categories. However, the allocation
procedure based on the cultivation duration was considered
to be the better attributional method given the high degree
of uncertainty in the nitrogen degradation. This uncertainty
is related to the complex interactions among the variables
to metabolize the following nutrients (i.e., nitrogen) of
fertilizers: variety of crops, crop management, soil type,
weather conditions and fertilizer.
Keywords
Compost; Impacts; Horticultural; Nitrogen; Soil; Weather
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