What is Intact Harvesting?

January 13, 2009 · Filed Under solutions

Intact harvesting is an alternative to harvesting by combine harvester.

The crop is swathed into windrows, as is done now with oilseed rape in this country and with cereals in some other countries. After several days drying using just the wind and the sun, the whole, ripe crop is baled into large, dense bales using a baler (Intact harvester) that is designed to minimize seed losses.

These bales are stored cheaply then transported as needed to biorefineries where various chemicals, biofuels and feeds are produced, or to less complex factories that separate the seed from the straw on a year-round basis. The straw is converted on site into cellulosic ethanol or burned to produce electricity and heat.

With no straw to incorporate, ploughing is not needed, reducing fuel use and keeping remaining organic matter near the surface. Moreover, all animal manure, food waste and sewage sludge produces biogas by anaerobic digestion and the residue is returned to the soil as a fertiliser.

Using oilseed rape as an example, the energy gain over inputs, using this method, would increase by about 103 GJ/ha (1:9 energy balance) even without taking in to account savings on drying and storage, meaning that agriculture could produce sufficient food plus its own energy needs, as it did before we became dependent on finite fossil fuels.