# Presentation: 219921

## Balancing Crop Biomass for Bioenergy and Conservation

**Balancing Crop Biomass for Bioenergy and Conservation**
***REAP - Renewable Energy Assessment Project***
** ****Jane M-F Johnson****1****, Ronald Follett****2****, Douglas Karlen****3****, Wally Wilhelm****4**
**1****USDA-ARS-Morris, MN, ****2****USDA-ARS-Fort Collins, CO, ****3****USDA-ARS-Ames, IA, ****4****USDA-ARS-Lincoln, NE**

_***REAP Goals***_
**Determine the amount of crop residue needed to protect the soil resource.**
**Compare short- and long-term economic value of biomass as a bio-energy feedstock and as a soil carbon source.**
**Provide recommendations and guidelines for sustainable biomass harvest to the Department of Energy, producers and other cooperators.**

_***Hypothesis***_
**Biomass feedstock harvest rates and managements strategies can be designed that ensure that th esoil resource meets the demands for food, feed, fiber and fuel.**

_***REAP Location and Team Members***_

_***Introduction***_
**Soil and water conservation benefits must be included in any biomass assessment to prevent long-term environmental damage as the nation addresses short-term energy problems. **
**Therefore, to develop an environmentally and economically sound bioenergy economy, the tradeoff between managing crop residues protect soil from erosion and to sustain soil organic carbon/matter (SOC/SOM) stores and building a biomass economy must be carefully assessed.**

**Residue removal impact on grain yield and soil organic matter**

- Historically soils have lost soil C since the advent of
- intensive agriculture, harvesting non-grain biomass without offsetting practices could result in further soil degradation .

- Returning crop residue to the field has a positive impact on yield and soil organic matter.
-  (Power et al., 1998 SSSAJ)

**Amount of corn stover needed to maintain SOC, limit water or wind erosion to T**

- In general, more stover is required for maintaining SOC than is needed for limiting water or wind erosion.  However, stover should **not **be harvested from highly erodible lands. (Wilhelm et al., 2007 AJ in-press)

- The area under the line represent the amount of stove that may be harvested from different rotation and tillage systems.  For example, The amount of stover that might be harvested in a moldboard plowed corn-soybean rotation without reducing SOC is in the grey shaded area. It is assumed all soybean straw remains in the field.  Johnson et al 2006 JSWC; Wilhelm et al., 2007

**Harvestable corn stover while maintain SOC**

_***REAP anticipated products***_
**Soil and crop management guidelines.**
**Predictive equations to determine sustainable rates for their system.**
**Management support tools and guidelines for comparing economic trade-offs of harvesting crop non-grain biomass and retaining them for soil conservation.**
**Crop and soil management strategies to enable the soil resource to indefinitely meet the demands for food, feed, fiber and fuel.**

_***Anticipated outcome***_
- A sustainable biofuel and bio-product industry must be based on management practices that maintain soil cover, reduce the risk of erosion and that maintain soil organic matter; thereby sustaining soil productivity.