Cropgen
Cropgen was a pan-European research project funded by the European Commission under the sixth framework program. The main aim of this project was to assess the use of energy crops and agricultural residues as a feedstock for anaerobic digestion for the production of biogas as a renewable energy. The project was lead by Southampton University and included 11 European Partners, including seven universities and three industrial partners, of which Greenfinch was one.
The project ran for three years, commencing during summer 2004. The main focus of Greenfinch's work was;
• to carry out large scale field trials to produce a variety of crops for anaerobic digestion in pilot scale digesters;
• to assess the nutrient value of the digestate as a fertiliser for these crops;
• and to examine the handling and digester design requirements for the various feedstocks through the operation of pilot scale digesters.
As part of Cropgen ryegrass trials were carried out in South Shropshire and South West Scotland to establish if different amounts of nitrogen applied through digestate (produced from feedstocks of grass and cow manure respectively) had an effect on herbage yield. The trial consisted of four different treatments with eight replicates: 340kgN.ha -1 , 225kgN.ha -1 , 113kgN.ha -1 , and 0kgN.ha -1 , and an additional treatment in Scotland using a mix of mineral fertiliser and digestate at a rate used by the farmer on the remainder of his land. The results from both sets of trials were positive showing that the digested slurry can produce very similar grass yields to plots that were applied with mineral fertilisers.
