AlpinHempHarvester2
Funding: Tyrolean innovation funding
Funding period: 03/2022 - 12/2023
Project partners:
- Development of the harvester/prototype construction: Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Alois Bauer
- Hemp cultivation/agricultural expertise: Michael Halbfurter
- Programming of the control system/automation: DirFind OG
- LCA & LCC: University of Innsbruck, Institute for Infrastructure, AB Environmental Engineering
Project description:
Tyrol needs climate-fit grassland and drought-resistant plants both in valleys and on steep slopes. New crops must be tested and further developed here, which can also economically secure small-scale Tyrolean agriculture. Industrial hemp is one of these plants. It is robust, undemanding and also thrives at higher altitudes up to approx. 1,500 metres. In addition, hemp offers a wide range of utilisation possibilities, from food and cosmetics to animal feed, textiles, composites, paper, building materials and biogenic residues for thermal utilisation. Almost the entire plant can be utilised, flowers, leaves, seeds and stems.
Companies such as Tiroler Berghanf GmbH or open-minded farmers such as Michael Halbfurter, who is involved in this project, are already showing that industrial hemp offers promising regional potential. However, due to decades of cultivation bans, a lot of knowledge about hemp has been forgotten and harvesting technology has not been further developed.
Nowadays, harvesting is mostly done with modified combine harvesters. These harvest the flowers. The stalks are usually only processed into straw, the fibres in the stalk remain unused. Due to the lack of harvesting technology, the dual use of hemp - i.e. the use of the flowers, leaves, seeds (spike) as well as the fibres in the stalk - is usually dispensed with. In order to utilise the full potential of the hemp fibre, the stalk should remain undamaged and, if possible, preserved in its entire length.
In addition, the use of combine harvesters limits the cultivation area to flat valley locations. Hemp would also thrive on slopes and mountains, but today only manual harvesting would be possible there.
This is where the project comes in: The aim is to develop a commercial hemp harvester that enables dual utilisation and can also be used in steep terrain (AlpinHanfHarvester). At the same time, scientific research is being conducted into how the plants differ in terms of quality, growth habit, harvest time, etc. when grown at different altitudes, so that the environmental impact of hemp products from slopes can then be compared with those from lowlands. For this purpose, trial cultivation areas of industrial hemp at three different altitudes are subjected to a life cycle assessment. The entire life cycle of the respective products is considered, including cultivation, fertilisation, harvesting and crop rotation effects, and compared with comparable conventional products as far as possible. The life cycle costs are also analysed.
Contact:
University of Innsbruck
Dipl.-Ing. Julika Knapp
Technikerstrasse 13
6020 Innsbruck
julika.knapp@uibk.ac.at