Carbon footprint generated during plant production – literature review and own research

The publication is addressed to individuals and entities that deal with trade and implementation of new agricultural machinery. The paper presents identified sources causing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere in the plant production process. The work was divided into several parts: the topic of gases causing the greenhouse effect was generally presented, then the gases that were most responsible for the said effect were identified. A method for determining the carbon footprint of agrotechnical treatments was also proposed, based on the results of research carried out using a machine aggregated with a tractor through a measurement frame specially designed and built for this purpose. The aforementioned work was carried out to identify and illustrate many agrotechnical treatments against a common background. The preliminary studies conducted in field conditions allow us to assess the sense of conducting this type of research based on simple to measure parameters. The aspect that remains to be solved is the development of an algorithm that, after taking into account parameters such as the value of working resistance or the type of machine, will determine the carbon footprint.