Potential of Windbreak Trees to Reduce Carbon Emissions by Agricultural Operations in the US

Along with sequestering C in forest, trees on farms are able to contribute to greenhouse mitigation through emission avoidance mechanisms. To evaluate the magnitude of these contributions, emission avoidance contributions for field and farmstead windbreak designs in regions across the United States...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forests 2017-04, Vol.8 (5), p.138
Main Authors: Ballesteros-Possu, William, Brandle, James, Schoeneberger, Michele
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural management
Agriculture
agroforestry
Air pollution
Avoidance
avoided emissions (or energy savings)
Budgeting
Budgets
Carbon
carbon storage
Conditioning
Corn
Cropping systems
Crops
Emission analysis
Emissions
Emissions control
Energy consumption
Energy usage
Equivalence
Farming
Farms
farmstead windbreak trees
Fuels
Greenhouse effect
greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gases
Heating
Mitigation
Potatoes
Sequestering
Trees
Wheat
Windbreaks
Winter wheat
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Along with sequestering C in forest, trees on farms are able to contribute to greenhouse mitigation through emission avoidance mechanisms. To evaluate the magnitude of these contributions, emission avoidance contributions for field and farmstead windbreak designs in regions across the United States were estimated, along with greenhouse gas (GHG) emission budgets for corn, soybean, winter wheat, and potato operations. We looked at farming scenarios with large (600 ha), mid (300 ha), and small-size (60 ha) farms containing farmsteads built before and after 2000, and growing different cropping systems. Windbreak scenarios were assumed to be up to 5% of the crop area for field windbreaks, while emission avoidance for farmstead windbreaks were assumed to provide a 10% and 25% reduction in energy usage for space conditioning and heating, respectively. Total reduction of C equivalent (CE) emissions by windbreaks on farm systems ranged from a low of 0.9 Mg CE year−1 for a 60-ha farm with a home built before 2000 to 39.1 Mg CE year−1 for a 600-ha farm with a home built after 2000. By reducing fossil fuel usage from farm operations, windbreaks provide a promising strategy for reducing GHG emissions from agriculture in the USA.
ISSN:1999-4907
1999-4907
DOI:10.3390/f8050138