Energy budget of a method to harvest cotton stalks

Abstract

The energy budget of a method to harvest cotton stalks developed and tested in Greece is reported in the present paper. The method used conventional hay harvesting machinery. An instrumented tractor was used to measure the energy consumption during the work in the field while literature data were used for the indirect energy sequested to the machinery used. The results showed that a net energy of 35,498 MJ/ha can be produced from cotton field every year, indicating the interest for this residue use. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.