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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MAGIC (Marginal lands for Growing Industrial Crops: Turning a burden into an opportunity)

Teaser

Summary

MAGIC aims towards the development of resource-efficient and economically profitable industrial crops to be grown on marginal land. In the long term, this strategy will foster the sustainable development of the EU bio-based economy and will contribute to achieving EU energy and climate targets. The specific objectives are:
1. To develop an up-to-date database (MAGIC-CROPS) of existing resource-efficient industrial crops, which will provide information on their agronomic characteristics, input requirements, yield performance and qualitative traits for innovative bio-based applications.
2. To identify, though a multi-actor approach inclusive of stakeholders, the most promising industrial crops suitable for production on European land facing natural constraints .
3. To map, characterise and analyse projections of current and future marginal land in Europe facing natural constraints and provide a spatially explicit classification that will serve as a basis for developing sustainable best-practice options for industrial crops in Europe.
4. To create new breeding tools and strategies towards better varieties of the selected industrial crops that will be resource-efficient and can be profitably cultivated on marginal land in Europe.
5. To identify and improve appropriate agronomic practices with limited input-requirements for the selected resource-efficient industrial crops.
6. To develop suitable harvesting strategies and logistics for the selected industrial crops on marginal land so that the performance of the whole biomass supply-chain is optimized.
7. To maximise the impact of MAGIC through the provision of objective information regarding all important sustainability aspects (covering environment, society and economy) of the value chains using scientific, transparent and reproducible methodologies.
8. To analyse success stories of the selected industrial crops in European regions addressing technical, environmental, economic and social issues and to produce policy recommendations and best-practice guidelines in order to promote the appropriate sourcing of renewable materials from marginal land at local/regional level.
9. To develop, test and disseminate a Decision Support System (DSS) with the active involvement of farmers and other end users (industry & policy makers).
10. To disseminate the project results, the database, the maps and the DSS tool to increase farmersâ€™ awareness and establish strong links with EIP AGRI

Work performed

A first version of MAGIC-CROPS database has been developed including data on several industrial crops: morphological description, pedoclimatic requirements, input needs, yields, and harvesting, current and alternative uses. A handbook with fact sheets of the industrial crops that have been also prepared.
The most promising industrial crops that can be grown on European marginal land, was carefully selected at the end of the first project-semester. The final selected crops (20 in total) are: camelina, crambe, Ethiopian mustard, castor been, safflower, pennycress, lupin, sorghum, hemp, switchgrass, giant reed, miscanthus, reed canary grass, tall wheat grass, cardoon, willow, poplar, eucalyptus, black locust, Siberian Elm.
Although, marginal lands have been defined by JRC a specific definition and classification of marginal land that will be adapted in MAGIC project had been carried out soon after the beginning of the project. . During the first reporting period two versions of MAGIC MAPS have been developed and presented to the consortium in the 2nd and the 3rd technical meeting, respectively. It should be noted that contaminated land will be also included as suitable non-food areas for industrial crops in the final version of MAGIC-MAPS.
New breeding tools and strategies will be developed to accelerate the genetic improvement of biomass yields and quality of selected industrial crops. Two parallel approaches have been employed; a) Universal genetic markers for fibre quality will be identified using forward genetics (from phenotype to candidate genes) and b) Universal candidate genes responsible for oil quality will be validated using a reverse genetics (from candidate gene to phenotype) approach. At the end of the first reporting period a set of varieties / genotypes (crambe, camelina, hemp and miscanthus) have been selected (based on previous research projects findings) and were available to be distributed to WP4 partners upon request to the new field trials establishment.
Soon after the beginning of the project the effective combination of low-input practices for the selected industrial crops had been identified in accordance with the specific marginality factors of each field trial. A large number of field trials addressing the 20 selected industrial crops are being carried out in ten European countries starting from the first reporting period. Trials are covering all the marginality factors of JRC with the addition of contaminated land. Moreover, previously established field trials of perennial crops on marginal land are being maintained in order to continue collecting long-term annual yield performance. Guidelines for farmers on how to grow industrial crops on marginal land will be set-up in the 2nd reporting period and will be distributed and discussed with farmers in national workshops.
The efficiency of biomass supply chains of industrial crops will be improved through the design of new harvesting and logistics systems, optimized to meet the needs of the targeted conversion process. Technologies tailored to the characteristics of the specific crops grown on marginal land will be developed through comprehensive data collection ad hoc field trials. A generic tool will be expanded and adapted to ensure an optimal match between the potential production of biomass from marginal lands and candidate conversion processes, resulting in an economically sound demand-driven approach to bio-based projects. During the first reporting period an inventory has been carried out that ended up to the preparation of factsheets on the twenty selected crops on harvesting and logistics.
The settings and definitions that will guarantee a coherent analysis across all elements of the sustainability assessment have been set up and will be used for the sustainability assessment. This includes especially the definition of all system boundaries and settings such as geographical and time-related coverage.
The Good Practice Cases in European regi

Final results

The main advances of MAGIC are: a) development of three tools (MAGIC CROPS database, MAGIC MAPS & MAGIC-DSS), b) breeding and agricultural practices of resource use efficient industrial crops