In a total survey of logging companies in Northern Italy, data were collected from six regions (from west to east: Piemonte, Val d'Aosta, Lombardia, Trentino, Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The total number of surveyed companies amounts to 1206. These companies have a total workforce of 3563 operators and harvest an estimated 3.3 million m 3 of wood per year. The North Italian logging industry is dominated by small-scale companies, largely equipped with obsolete, tractor-based technology. Modified farm tractors, winches, and forestry trailers account for over half of the total value of the fleet, which estimated at about €130 million. Twenty percent of this capital is used for cable yarding equipment, which amounts to 350 units. One logging company out of four has both the skills and the equipment for cable yarding. Companies equipped with a yarder harvest almost twice as much wood as the other companies. Seventy companies are equipped with mechanized cut-to-length equipment. They represent 6% of the total number, but harvest about 30% of the recorded annual cut. Companies equipped with mechanized cut-to-length equipment harvest almost four times as much wood as the other companies.

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The production of wood pellets has grown considerably in the last decades. Besides woody biomass, other feedstocks can be used for pellet production. Among these, miscanthus presents some advantages because, even if specifically cultivated, it requires low inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides and shows high biomass yield (up to 28 tons of dry matter ha−1 in Europe). Even if in the last years some studies evaluated the environmental impact of woody pellet production, there is no information about the environmental performances of miscanthus pellet production. In this study, the environmental impact of miscanthus pellet was evaluated using the Life Cycle Assessment approach with a cradle-to plant gate perspective. Primary data were collected in a small-medium size pelletizing plant located in Northern Italy where miscanthus is cultivated to be directly processed. The results highlight how the miscanthus pellet shows lower environmental impact compared to woody pellet, mainly due to the lower energy consumption during pelletizing. The possibility to pelletize the miscanthus biomass without any drying offsets the environmental impact related to the miscanthus cultivation for all the evaluated impact categories (except for Marine eutrophication). In detail, for global warming potential, 1 ton of miscanthus pellet shows an impact of 121.6 kg CO2 eq. (about 8% lower respect to woody pellet) while for the other evaluated impact categories the impact reduction ranges from 4 to 59%. Harvesting, which unlike the other field operations is carried out every year, is by far the main contributor to the impacts of the cultivation phase while electricity is the main contributor to the pelletizing phase.

SUMMARYA reliable evaluation of crop nutritional status is crucial for supporting fertilization aiming at maximizing qualitative and quantitative aspects of production and reducing the environmental impact of cropping systems. Most of the available simulation models evaluate crop nutritional status according to the nitrogen (N) dilution law, which derives critical N concentration as a function of above-ground biomass. An alternative approach, developed during a project carried out with students of the Cropping Systems Masters course at the University of Milan, was tested and compared with existing models (N dilution law and approaches implemented in EPIC and DAISY models). The new model (MAZINGA) reproduces the effect of leaf self-shading in lowering plant N concentration (PNC) through an inverse of the fraction of radiation intercepted by the canopy. The models were tested using data collected in four rice (Oryza sativaL.) experiments carried out in Northern Italy under potential and N-limited conditions. MAZINGA was the most accurate in identifying the critical N concentration, and therefore in discriminating PNC of plants growing under N-limited and non-limited conditions, respectively. In addition, the present work proved the effectiveness of crop models when used as tools for supporting education.

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