The aim of SidaTim is to strengthen the European bio-based economy by researching and promoting potentials of new land use concepts that comprise
Current trends in agriculture foster intensification of the cultivation management that often results in monoculture cultivation, nitrate leaching, soil erosion, and biodiversity decline. Also, the European woody biomass economy indicates that wood produced in forests, both for energy and for timber, will not cover future demand.
Hence, new land use approaches are needed to enhance the sustainability of agriculture and the production of lignocellulosic biomass. One approach to achieve this goal lies in the optimized management of agroforestry systems, i.e. growing trees in combination with other crops on the same land unit.
The project SidaTim assesses the potential of agroforestry systems that consist of valuable timber trees grown in combination with biomass plants such as Sida and Silphium.
Below, we present key findings pertaining to the two foci of SidaTim.
Biomass yieds of Sida and Silphium in the first two years of growth. The data pertain to experimental plots in Poland with two provenances of Sida and one provenance of Silphium. All were established using seeds and seedlings.
Three-dimensional tree-model derived from terrestrial laser scans and its shadow projection, showing the annual solar energy reduction on the ground below.
In peer-reviewed journals
Other publications
Coordinator:
Dr. Michael Nahm
Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany
Email: michael.nahm@iww.uni-freiburg.de
Project partners:
Total funding: 981.000 €
Preliminary results regarding yields of virginia mallow (Sida hermaphrodita L.) and cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum L.) in different condition of Europe.
Presentation, EUBCE 2019