This document summarizes a study on the viability of growing shrub willow as a bioenergy buffer crop on agricultural fields in the US Midwest to improve sustainability. Key findings include that shrub willow buffers substantially improved nitrogen use efficiency, produced comparable biomass yields to unfertilized monocultures, improved water quality by reducing soil and nitrogen losses, and provided other ecosystem services. However, shrub willow did not provide positive net revenue due to high land rental costs. It could be more economically competitive than corn in marginal soils or when considering the monetary value of ecosystem services provided. While not financially viable on its own currently, integrating shrub willow buffers shows potential to improve the environmental sustainability of agroecos
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The viability of growing shrub willow as bioenergy buffer
1. The viability of growing shrub willow as bioenergy buffer on
intensively managed agricultural fields of U.S. Midwest
C. Zumpf1, J. Cacho1, P. Campbell1, H. Ssegane2, and C. Negri1
[1] Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA; [2] The Climate Corp., St. Louis, MO, USA
3. Main question:
• Can the efficiency and sustainability of commodity crop production be improved by integrating
perennial bioenergy crops into intensively managed agroecosystems?
Landscape design approach (Nassauer, 2008) + inherent
physiological traits of perennial bioenergy crops (Davis et
al., 2013).
• Multifunctional system (food, energy, etc.)
• Maximize productivity per unit land area
• Maximize the use of production inputs
(especially chemical fertilizer)
• Minimize environmental footprints
4. Sangamon
Indian Creek watershed, IL
(Hamada et al., 2015)
Study site near Fairbury, IL (Ssegane et al., 2015)
Field study site (near Fairbury, IL)
• 6.5 ha (non-tile drained) field under continuous corn rotation
• Bordered by a corn-soybean rotation (east side) & riparian forest buffer (west side)
• Riparian forest buffer is adjacent to the Indian Creek, which drains into the Vermillion River
• Mean annual PCP = 887 mm (GHCN); Mean annual total ET = 661 mm (NASA-NLDAS).
5. 5
Study site analysis
Terrain & soil Surface & subsurface hydrology
Crop yield Water quality (soil water NO3-N)
Ssegane et al. (2015)
Low corn yield
areas coincide with
high nitrate losses
VERIS® soil mapping and image provided by Farm
Map Solutions, LLC.
6. Bioenergy crop placement
Berm
Country road
MW1
MW5
Willow Corn
MW4
MW3
MW2
MW6S
MW6D
Corn
Residential area
North:
Downslope
South:
Upslope
Ssegane et al. (2015)
Field study layoutCrop placement guide
Fertile soil
Marginal soil
8. 8Cr
Corn
Corn
Willow
North Plots
South plots
Nitrogen Use Efficiency
Zumpf et al. (2017)
Biomass (Mg ha yr-1
)
Fairbury, IL (unfertilized) 6.45
*Tully, NY (unfertilized) 6.75
100 kg N ha yr-1 9.8
300 kg N ha yr-1 11.7
Composted poultry manure 14.1
*Ssegane et al. (2015)
Biomass produced and nitrogen uptake (end of 2015 season; 2nd cropping year)
Plots NUE (Corn only, %) NUE (Corn + Willow, %) NUE (% increase)
North 59.4 78.23 18.83
South 45.85 60.4 14.55
N fertilizer applied 248 kg N ha-1
yr-1
13. Other Ecosystem Services
Design including
bioenergy and
water quality
Current
land use
Tile- nitrate leachate Sediment yield Pollinator nesting index
(InVEST)
Tile- nitrate leachate Sediment yield Pollinator nesting index
(InVEST)
(Ssegane et al., 2016)
(Graham et al., 2016) InVEST = integrated valuation of ecosystem services and tradeoffs
(https://www.naturalcapitalproject.org/invest/)
14. 14
Economics: Scenario analysis at a watershed scale
• 3 cases: 2 ha, 10 ha, 40.5 ha
• 3 scenarios for each case: [1] Business As Usual (BAU), [2] Landscape Single Subfield
(LSSF), & [3] Landscape Multiple Subfields (LMSF)
• Indian Creek Watershed, IL
(Ssegane et al., 2016)
BAU
LSSF
LMSF
15. Case Scenario
Transport
distance
km
Annual net
revenue
($/ha)
Annual net
revenue
($/wet metric
ton)
Opportunity
cost: min yield
[max yield]
($/ton)b
1
(2.0 ha)
BAU
Min 2 -$145.79 -$10.34 41.59 [-9.66]
Max 18 -$177.92 -$11.87 40.06 [-11.19]
Landscape:
single
subfield
(LSSF)
Min 2 -$108.73 -$5.22 46.71 [-4.54]
Max 18 -$135.91 -$6.55 45.38 [-5.87]
Landscape:
Multiple (4)
subfields
(LMSF)
Most likely 24 -$217.45 -$10.48 41.45 [-9.80]
2
(10.1 ha)
BAU
Min 2 -$108.73 -$8.55 43.38 [-7.87]
Max 18 -$143.32 -$10.21 41.72 [-9.53]
Landscape:
single
subfield
(LSSF)
Min 2 -$81.54 -$3.97 47.96 [-3.29]
Max 18 -$116.14 -$5.61 46.32 [-4.93]
Landscape:
Multiple (9)
subfields
(LMSF)
Most likely 36 -$237.22 -$11.38 40.55 [-10.70]
3
(40.5 ha)
BAU
Min 3.5 -$91.43 -$7.76 44.17 [-7.08]
Max 16.4 -$118.61 -$9.08 42.85 [-8.40]
Landscape:
single
subfield
(LSSF)
Min 3.5 -$66.72 -$3.21 48.72 [-2.53]
Max 16.4 -$93.90 -$4.54 47.39 [-3.86]
Landscape:
multiple
(43)
subfields
(LMSF)
Most likely
76
-$303.94 -$14.58 37.35 [-13.90]
• Willow does not provide a positive net revenue in Indian
Creek watershed
• Land rental cost is the major reason
• Reduced losses ~$5/ton are seen in the LSSF (saving on
fertilizer and headland)
• LMSF present higher losses, depending on distance
• Nitrogen recovery savings allow for an extra ~5 to 7 km
of inter-field distance.
• Opportunity cost (difference in net revenue between
willow and corn in that area: choosing to grow willow
over corn) suggest willow may still be competitive
compared to low yielding corn (3.2 Mg ha-1).
15
(Ssegane et al., 2016)
Economics: Scenario analysis at a watershed scale
16. Economics: Opportunity costs & cost of water quality
Sensitive to corn yields, at current prices a perennial crop such as
bioenergy willow could represent a viable alternative in
underproductive subfield patches if there were a market for it.
Farmer’s perspective: When considering
environmental services, normalized costs show
that a multi-crop landscape could be
competitive with other conservation practices.
Christianson et al. (2013)
Societal perspective:
• What would society pay for the additional regulating services provided?
• What policy could support this type of development?
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
Willow net revenue Opportunity cost lo Opportunity cost Hi
$/ton(biomass)
Net Revenue and Opportunity Cost
17. -$600
-$400
-$200
$0
$200
$400
$600
$800
$1,000
$1,200
$1,400
Value of ES from reductions in nitrogen and soil losses $/ha
Returns from SWG
Value of reductions in soil losses
Value of reductions in nitrogen losses
Per hectare, losses from switchgrass production could be more than compensated by the value of the Ecosystem Service
provided. Data on willows in process.
-$427
$1,351
Societal perspective: What would it cost to society to pay for the additional regulating services provided?
17
Economics: Opportunity costs & cost of water quality
18. Conclusions
Shrub willow as bioenergy buffer on continuous corn system:
• substantially improves the system’s N use efficiency.
• produces biomass that is comparable to unfertilized willow monoculture (per unit area).
• does not seem to have negative impact on soil nutrient reserves.
• has subsoil carbon sequestration potential.
• has comparable water use to corn.
• significantly improves water quality.
• has potential positive benefits to pollinators.
• does not provide a positive net revenue in Illinois due to high rental cost of land, but could be
more competitive than corn in marginal soil.
• is competitive with currently available water quality BMPs (e.g., constructed wetlands,
bioreactors, controlled drainage, & N rate reduction)
• can be economically competitive when monetary values of all the ecosystem services it provides
are considered.
19. Acknowledgements
Project funding source:
Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE)
Program, Bioenergy technologies Office (BETO)
Farm Owners:
Mr. Ray Popejoy and Mr. Paul Kilgus
Environmental Sciences Division, Argonne
Roser Matamala Paradeda, Timothy Vugteveen, and John Quinn
Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC)
Karen Scanlon and Chad Watts
SWCD, Livingston County, IL
Terry Bachtold and Rebecca Taylor
Indian Creek Watershed Project Leadership and Sponsors
USDA-NRCS, Livingston County, IL
Eric McTaggart
Staff, Andrews Engineering, Pontiac, IL
State University of New York (SUNY)
Tim Volk and Justin Heavy
Student Interns
20. References
COM. 2007. Communications from the Commission of the European Council and the European Parliament: An energy policy for Europe.
Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, Belgium.
Christianson, L., Tyndall, J., & Helmers M. (2013). Financial comparison of seven nitrate reduction strategies for Midwestern agricultural
drainage. Water Resources and Economics, 2–3:30-56.
Davis, S. C., Boddey, R. M., Alves, B. J., Cowie, A. L., George, B. H., Ogle, S. M., Smith, P., Noordwijk, M., Wijk, M. T. (2013). Management
swing potential for bioenergy crops. Glob Change Biol Bioenergy, 5:623-638.
Hamada, Y., Ssegane, H., & Negri, M. C. (2015). Mapping intra-field yield variation using high resolution satellite imagery to integrate
bioenergy and environmental stewardship in an agricultural watershed. Remote Sensing,7(8), 9753-9768.
IPCC. (2014). Climate change 2014 synthesis report. Summary for policymakers (https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-
report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf).
NASA-North American Land Data Assimilation System (NASA-NLDAS) (https://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/nldas/NLDAS2forcing.php).
NOAA-Global Historical Climate Network (NOAA-GHCN) (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-
datasets/global-historical-climatology-network-ghcn).
Ssegane, H., Negri, M. C., Quinn, J., & Urgun-Demirtas, M. (2015). Multifunctional landscapes: Site characterization and field-scale design to
incorporate biomass production into an agricultural system. Biomass Bioenerg, 80, 179-190.
Ssegane, H., Zumpf, C., Negri, M. C., Campbell, Patty, Heavy, J. P., Volk, T. A. (2016). The economics of growing shrub willow as a
bioenergy buffer on agricultural fields: A case study in the Midwest Corn Belt. Biofuel Bioprod Bior, 10:776–789. doi:10.1002/bbb.1679.
USEPA. (2015). Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force - 2015 Report to Congress. Biennial Report, EPA.
WRI. (2013). World resources report 2013-2014: Creating a sustainable food future. Interim Findings. Word Resources Institute
(http://www.wri.org/).
Zumpf C, Ssegane H, Campbell P, Negri MC, Cacho J. (2017). Nitrogen recovery and biomass production: environmental ecosystem services
at the field scale. J Environ Qual. doi:10.2134/jeq2017.02.0082.
We also monitored greenhouse gas production from soil respiration under each crop. This was done to evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions of the system. We can see that both crops are similar in terms of carbon dioxide production from the establishment of willow in 2013 to year 2016. Looking at nitrous oxide production, the two crops have comparable production rates early on, as we can see here from 2013 to 2014, but from 2015 to 2016, we see a significantly lower nitrous oxide production from willow.
We look at the ecosystem benefits of the system at a watershed scale using Indian Creek watershed. This slide shows how a transition from a BAU (monoculture corn or soybean) to a landscape that incorporates perennial bioenergy crops in low productivity and environmentally vulnerable land has the potential to reduce sediment and nitrate loadings to surface water (darker color means higher values). It also shows how this alternative design centered around water quality can also favorably impact the pollinator nesting index.
An economic analysis was conducted using 3 cases defined by the size of the field where willows can be implemented. There 3 scenarios in each case including scenario1: business as usual, where you grow the whole area with either corn or willow only, then we have scenario 2: landscape single subfield (LSSF) where willows are grown on marginal areas on a single subfield, and finally scenario 3: landscape multiple subfields (LMSF) where willows are distributed across multiple subfields. Differences in production costs, net revenues, and opportunity costs, were then evaluated to formulate a value proposition for landscape-produced willow biomass. In these analysis grain elevators near the watershed (green circles) were chosen as potential depot locations as an adaptive reuse of the current infrastructure or co-location with existing activities, and for their location along the railway transport network. In the final analysis, Grain elevator 1 (show) was selected because of its proximity to the centroid of the watershed.
Regardless of the case & scenario, willow does not provide a positive net revenue due to high rental cost of the area. The multiple landscape scenario presents higher losses depending on the average Euclidean distance from the depot. But, opportunity cost, which is the difference in net revenue between willow and corn in marginal areas, suggests that willow may still be competitive compared to low yielding corn.
The opportunity cost is dependent on corn yields. If we’re having a bad year for corn, due to, unfavorable weather conditions, our opportunity costs is very high, but if we’re having a good year for corn then the opportunity cost of planting willows on the same area is very low. On the other hand, if a bioenergy-commodity crop landscape is taken as a N management technique, then it is very comparable to existing best management practices in terms of average cost of N removal.
This plot is for switchgrass, we’re still working on our data on willows. But, this is showing on a per hectare basis, net revenue losses could be more than compensated by the water quality benefits it provides.