Sara Bergante

• Ph.D.
• Researcher at Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economy Analysis

From the early 2000s, many forestation projects were carried out in the flooding areas of the Po River to preserve abandoned or damaged riverbanks and establish natural populations of Populus nigra L. for species conservation and future seed collection activities. Different clones of P. nigra, belonging to a collection of the Centre for Forestry an...

The current demand for wood products is growing globally. Hybrid poplars are fast growing trees and it is beneficial to expand their cultivation area. Digital mapping techniques based on land suitability assessment can effectively support land use decision-making processes in this perspective. The aim of this study was to develop a model to produce...

Under exacerbated environmental conditions due to climate change and more fre quent and more severe disturbances the establishment of forest stands has become a challenge for forest managers. This study aims at comparing stand establishment methods on a European scale. We differentiated between five biogeographic regi ons to detect similarities and...

In Italia, la consociazione tra alberi forestali, seminativi, colture orticole, prati, pascoli, alberi da frutto, olivi e vite hanno dato luogo a veri e propri paesaggi agricoli arborati, di particolare qualità anche estetica. I sistemi agroforestali determinano un più efficiente uso delle risorse naturali rispetto a quelli monocolturali, tuttavia,...

Renewable bioenergy has the potential to contribute sustainably to the energy sector. Forestry is the main source of biomass for energy in Europe, and poplar (genus Populus) is widely used for short rotation coppice (SRC). Many studies have assessed poplar clones’ productivity but there is a lack of regional studies and links with the climate. We i...

With an adequate cultivation methodology, in suitable environments, hybrid poplars can produce over 200-210 m 3 ha − 1 of wood in 10 years (with 278 trees ha − 1). Some cultural inputs are fundamental for good yields, some others like fertilization can be evaluated because in the face of high environmental and economic costs they do not always incr...

Il settore forestale in Italia si trova ad affrontare problematiche legate alla necessità di valorizzare le opportunità ambientali, territoriali e socio-economiche. La ricerca è chiamata a tradurre i progressi tecnologici in applicazioni pratiche. Un ambito in forte sviluppo è quello della geomatica e delle tecnologie dell'informazione e comunicazi...

Poplar (Populus spp.) is a high-value crop for wood and biomass production and a model organism for tree physiology and genomics. The early release, in 2006, of the complete genome sequence of P. trichocarpa was followed by a wealth of studies that significantly enriched our knowledge of complex pathways inherent to woody plants, such as lignin bio...

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a key role for improving the implementation of sustainable forest management at local, regional, and global level. The ICT potential to easily exploit a wider and more up-to-date set of information on the economic, environmental, and social value of forests is of relevant help for the daily work...

Final public document with the summary in Italian of Project Carter,

The cultivation of Populus spp. on acid soils is difficult mainly due to low nutrient availability, limiting the distribution and use of this marketable tree species. In this paper we report the results of two experiments, in which a granulated highly reactive micronized calcium carbonate (CaCO3) was tested at increasing levels to improve the effec...

Aim of study: To verify the short rotation coppices (SRC) aboveground biomass production; to define the best planting intra-row spacing for walnut and poplar growth and wood production, with the last goal to assess the possibility of obtaining competitive yields in comparison to those produced by traditional monocultures. Area of study: Po Valley,...

The cultivation of hybrid poplar clones is increasing worldwide. Hundreds of hectares of plantations now occur across Europe and other continents such as North America, using tested clones and novel genotypes. Research effort aims are to develop fast growing disease-and pest-resistant clones to improve production quality and quantity. In this study...

Within the activity of the H2020 'WOODnat' project ("Second generation of planted hardwood forests in the European Union") the growth parameters, yield and sanitary conditions of the most important walnut (Juglans spp.) plantations, established in Italy in the 1990s and in Spain starting from 1996, were recorded. One of the objectives of the projec...

In Italy 72 poplar clones (Populus spp.) are registered for commercialization. They were selected for fast growth, stem shape and disease resistance. The new selections (named MSA) includes genotypes with very high resistance to all the main diseases and to one insect, Phloeomizus passerinii (Sign.). Fast growth and disease resistance allow to prod...

The influence of environmental drivers and management strategies on crops growth is a focal point to deal with the potential impact of the climate changes on forest yields. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of irrigation and fer- tilization on growth dynamics of ‘Imola’ clone, an elite poplar crossed from Populus deltoides Bartr...

Walnut tree species (Juglans spp.) are commonly used for high-quality wood production in plantation forestry. In this paper, the most relevant walnut plantations in Italy and Spain have been reviewed and analysed under a geographic and techni- cian management point of view. Between 2016 and 2019 a total of 96 plantations (15 - 25 years old) were vi...

This experiment was aimed at verifying the usefulness of phytoremediation using Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) in an urban Zn-contaminated site. Besides elemental uptake and reclamation, the SRC method was applied to evaluate the additional benefits of a green infrastructure. Nine different plants with rapid growth and large biomass production were s...

This book is a result of the project ‘Second generation of planted hardwood forests in the EU — Woodnat’, financed by the European Commission, carried out by a companies’ temporal consortium integrating Seistag Innovacion SL (Spain), Industrial Plants OOD (Bulgaria), ECM Ingenieria Ambiental SL (Spain), WAF Estructuras Digitales SL (Spain), Losan R...

The Woodnat project (H2020) has the goal of identifying the problems that led to poor yields in walnut plantations established under the financial support of EU 2080/92 Regulation and Rural Development Programme, and of improving the market demand for smaller assortments. Some of the plantations monitored in the framework of the project needed thin...

A forest inventory is an important tool to assess and estimate the amounts of wood for industrial use available and to be expected in the future. It generally requires a high effort, both in terms of costs and time, if based on the direct sampling of the areas or on the classification of aerial photoghaphs or satellite images. The paper presents a...

Recently, some experiments carried out on Short Rotation Coppice have been focused on a new planting method consisting of burying long cuttings horizontally in substitution of conventional short cuttings planted vertically, with the intent of improving field capacity. The goal of this study is to evaluate the performance of a planter prototype set...

First results from The European project WoodNat: second generation of planted hardwood forests in EU

Short Rotation Coppices (SRC) can be a suitable solution for the production of biomass, mainly due to the easy-to-harvest good-quality feedstock. Besides technical, social and economic aspects, environmental issues are important to be taken into account when developing SRC. Although some studies focused on environmental sustainability of SRC were c...

A reduction in energetic and economic costs is key to the sustainable development of Short Rotation Coppices (SRC) for energy purposes. During their cultivation, the highest costs are incurred during the planting and harvesting phases. A new planting method, which involves the horizontal disposition of stems or cuttings 120 cm long, at a depth of 5...

A wealth of data and information on the cultivation of perennial biomass crops has been collected, but direct comparisons between herbaceous and woody crops are rare. The main objective of this research was to compare the biomass yield, the energy balance and the biomass quality of six perennial bioenergy crops: Populus spp., Robinia pseudoacacia,...

Environmental issues, e.g. climate change, fossil resource depletion have triggered ambitious national/regional policies to develop biofuel and bioenergy roles within the overall energy portfolio to achieve decarbonising the global economy and increase energy security. With the 10 % binding target for the transport sector, the Renewable Energy Dire...

One of the strategies to ensure energy security and to mitigate climate change in the European Union (EU) is the establishment and the use of short rotation woody crops (SRWCs) for the production of renewable energy. SRWCs are cultivated in the EU under different management systems. Addressing the energy security problems through SRWCs requires man...

Growing demand for energy has led to a rise in the price of fossil oil and an increased rate of depletion of fossil resources. This situation has generated a strong interest in the use of biofuel, and many studies have been undertaken on the worldwide potential for biofuel. Among all renewable energy sources, biomass could contribute to meeting the...

One ofthestrategiestoensureenergysecurityandtomitigateclimatechangeintheEuropeanUnion (EU) istheestablishmentandtheuseofshortrotationwoodycrops(SRWCs)fortheproductionof renewableenergy.SRWCsarecultivatedintheEUunderdifferentmanagementsystems.Addressingthe energy securityproblemsthroughSRWCsrequiresmanagementsystemsthatmaximizethenetenergy yield per...

Land use competition between food/feed and energy crops could exclude the establishment of Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) plantations, as bioenergy woody crop, on productive agricultural land. A solution could be the cultivation of multipurpose plantations producing bio-mass and logs for industry, as an innovative alley coppice system. This is a mixt...

In 2005 started the project "Study, experimentation and feasibility analysis for biomass energy production from SRF and SRC" (BIOFIL) financed by the Head Office for Agricultural Development of the Piedmont Region (Italy). One of the purpose of the project is to give indications on cultivation techniques of species as poplar, willow and black locus...

Although large amounts of residue from agriculture and forestry are presently available for the production of bioenergy, to ensure a sustainable, long-term supply of biomass, it is necessary to establish and grow perennial energy crops on marginal agricultural land that is specifically intended to produce biomass for energy. Preliminary research ha...

In Europe, farmers prefer the very Short Rotation Coppice (vSRC) cultivation model, with a very high plant density (5500–14,000 p ha−1) and a harvesting cycle of 1–4 years; while in Italy, recently, the farmers prefer the Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) method, with a high plant density (1000–2000 p ha−1) and a harvesting cycle of 5–7 years. This is b...

journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third part...

Data collected from 183 poplar and 102 willow SRC experimental plots, located in Central-North Italy, were subjected to stepwise regression analysis to acquire information on the environmental factors affecting plant survival and productivity in the first two-year rotation cycle. Nine Populus ×canadensis Mönch, eight P. deltoids Bartr. clones and f...

Purpose of this work was to evaluate the greenhouses (GHG) budget and energy balance of several type of bioenergy crops, that have replaced sugar beet after the application of the EU sugar Common Market Organisation reform, to show their potentialities in mitigation effects. In the period 2008 -2009 have been monitorated 347 new commercial energy c...

Productivity of poplar and willow in short rotation plantations. In 2001 the Italian Ministry of Agricul- tural and Forest Politics financed a forest research project (Ri.Selv.Italia), which included a study for testing arboreous species and cultivars for the production of energy biomass and for industrial purposes, in differ- ent sites of the coun...