Harvest machinery use methodology

Calculate emissions due to fuel combustion from harvesting with machinery.

Overview

Quantifies emissions due to harvesting of the measured crop by tractor. This methodology considers the type of crop being harvested which is then associated with the type of machinery used.

Limitations

This methodology does not include the actual production of the machinery or maintenance.

This activity’s methodology does not include all crop due to their speciality machinery use. Likewise, the emissions factor value generated for this activity for these crops will be null. See detailed mapping below. 

Does not include the following harvesting activities. 

• pre harvest swathers or rotary windrower common in small grains or in situational years (e.g. due to weather)

• post harvest drying

• post harvest silage processing

• loading for off farm transport

• trailer use along side a harvester due to limited emissions availability only in the US

• post harvest storage for any period of time

Today there is no distinction given for reduction events and machinery type used, like for hay, silage or root vegetables.

User Inputs

For each measurement there are inputs required. In the case that the user cannot provide the inputs then Regrow will default them.

• Assumes 1 harvest event per ha per commodity crop.

• No harvest event is considered for cover crops.

• Assumes harvesting ground crop emissions as Ecoinvent does not provide a specific value for melon/pumpkin/tomato/etc. harvest/picking/reaping in their machinery data sets or production activities exchanges.