Avoiding stubble trouble: Agricultural methods for reducing cereal crop waste

 

When we grow crops a huge amount of energy goes into their production and harvesting. In general, there is also a lot of waste when the wheat is separated from the chaff, so to speak, and stubble trouble is a common problem for wheat and rice and other cereal crops. Now, work on the energy content and potential to do work, exergy, of rice straw suggests that we might have an alternative to simply digging stubble in or burning it.

 

Writing in the International Journal of Exergy, Edelvy Bravo Amarante of the University of Sancti Spíritus "José Martí Pérez," Cuba, and colleagues there and at the University of Cienfuegos, the Technological University of Havana "Jose Antonio Echevarria," and the University of Kassel, Germany, explain the potential of rice straw.