## 3 Results and Discussion
This lack of precipitation in 2022 and 2023 and its negative impact on the feasibility, survival, and thriving of sown annual winter cultivations contributed to the typical interannual variability of cereal production areas in Southern Europe referred to in the Introduction and therein to a high number of sampled points with forage intercropping and natural pasture occupations, which matched the proposed four soil use cereal classes. Table 4 shows the results for the spatial modeling of biomass production in terms of occupation areas of the four cereal/legume classes, with a prevalent stratification of these classes in four main geographical areas. A total of sixteen combinations of four crops and four geographical areas was therefore considered. The four geographical areas cover approximately the municipalities of Beja, Serpa, Mourao, and Mertola and hereafter were named after them. It can be noticed that triticale/broad bean and oat/lupin were the cultivations whose areas were higher, with 17,383 ha and 16,045 ha, respectively. Wheat and barley areas followed with 9965 ha and 1587 ha, respectively. Triticale/broad bean areas were spread by regions of Mourao, Beja, and Serpa, while oat/lupin prevailed in Mertola with 14,211 ha. Wheat areas were higher in Beja and Serpa, with 7879 ha and 1854 ha, respectively. On the other hand, the cereal occupation areas of Beja, Mertola, and Mourao were the highest, with 14,445 ha, 14,211 ha, and 10,998 ha, respectively, followed by Serpa with 5334 ha. Straw biomass production was calculated based on dry matter productivities of 6, 9, 6, and 9 tons/ha for wheat, barley, oat/lupin, and tritticale/broad bean, respectively, delivering total dry biomass yearly productions of 326,790 tons, corresponding to 59,790 tons, 14,283 tons, 96,270 tons, and 156,447 tons for these classes. The distribution of the cereal/legume productions per geographical area is given in Table 5. It can be seen that the Beja area showed the highest proposed cereal production, with 103,622 tonsy\({}^{-1}\), followed by Mourao and Mertola and with the Serpa zone ranking last with 42,446 tonsy\({}^{-1}\). Mertola and Mourao were the zones where one single class (which was oat/lupin), and four plant classes were proposed, respectively. In Beja and Serpa, three plant classes were proposed, \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline  & **Beja** & **Serpa** & **Mourão** & **Mértola** \\ \hline Wheat & 7879 & 1854 & 232 & 0 \\ Barley & 0 & 873 & 714 & 0 \\ Oat/lupin & 917 & 0 & 917 & 14,211 \\ Triticale/broad bean & 5650 & 2607 & 9126 & 0 \\ \% of total areas & 32\% & 12\% & 24\% & 32\% \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Areas for spatially modeled cereal and legume occupations in four major geographical areas. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Observed Cultivation**} & **Number of Field Points Matching** & **Matched Initial** \\  & **One of the Four Soil-Use Groups** & **Classes** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Bred pasture} & 2 & Barley \\  & 1 & Triticale \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Natural pasture} & 39 & Oat/lupin \\  & 18 & Barley \\  & 24 & Wheat \\  & 37 & Triticale \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Tilled soil} & 4 & Triticale \\  & 2 & Wheat \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: _Cont._which were wheat and triticale/broad bean in both and oat/lupin and barley in Beja and Serpa, respectively. The total proposed production of bioenergy in the four zones was 5882 Tly\({}^{-1}\), based on a net calorific value (NNV) of 18 MJkg\({}^{-1}\), and its distribution by geographical areas is indicated in Table 6 and Figure 5. These distributions agreed obviously with those of plant cultivation areas shown in Table 5.  
The total bioenergy amount of 5880 Tly\({}^{-1}\) estimated in the Alentejo region with this modeling is very significant, corresponding to about 25% of the abovementioned regional energy production of 24,500 T) in 2022.