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whole crop sugarcane harvesting even under the “future” scenario of mallee harvester development and industry size. A key requirement for mallee supply chain development will be improvements to field layout and mallee plant presentation and to harvester design capacity to allow high pour rates of 50t/hr. Table 7.7 Comparison of Mallee (Western Australia) and Sugarcane (Whole crop - NSW) harvesting costs 171
8. Conclusions and Recommendations Sugarcane and mallee systems have many similarities. They both represent high volume, relatively low value crops, which require considerable processing and value addition to meet the selected market. Both systems have significant harvest and transport requirements using specialised equipment. In both cases delivered cost is high relative to the market price. Sugarcane industries have spent many years researching and refining their crop production systems and associated harvesting and transport arrangements. While sugarcane farming systems have evolved to meet a specific market, the mallee woody crop industry has yet to define its market. Innovation in sugarcane farming has been largely driven by growers of a monoculture crop aiming to meet a specific product requirement. Mallee growers in Western Australia have had multiple objectives under integrated wheat and mallee cropping systems. They have only recently started to consider mallee markets and harvest and transport costs. Elsewhere, such as NSW, mallee is being considered solely as a biomass resource and systems are being developed by Aurora Research and Delta Electricity to optimise production and the supply chain as a viable standalone business. The key issues and recommendations provided in this report will assist all participants in realising a sustainable supply chain. An important next step will be implementation of appropriate recommendations to support implementation of a regional biomass supply chain. Opportunities for this include Narrogin (Western Australia), NSW as part of the Delta/Aurora research biomass project and Northern NSW as part of the NSW Sugar Milling cooperatives cogeneration initiative. Crop Production Chapter 1 of this report has contrasted the sugarcane and mallee crop production systems. The sugar industry has over time been able to modify its farming systems to maximise crop production and adapt harvesting and transport systems to minimise damage to the field and plant while improving the quality of the delivered product. It has also implemented harvesting best management practices which address harvest and transport requirements as well as crop agronomic requirements. The mallee industry has also been researching these issues which will require ongoing implementation, monitoring and review as the commercial aspects of the industry mature. The sugar industry has placed considerable effort getting a better understanding of and managing the various components of the harvested crop and its impact on transport and sugar processor arrangements. This area has received limited consideration in mallee systems. It will become a critical issue if markets for biomass have strict quality requirements and if efficiencies of harvesting, storage and transport systems are compromised. Expansion in the sugar industry has generally been driven at a local mill area scale in response to market forces. Future expansion in mallee production will be driven by the market for biomass and farming systems and layouts will need to adapt to the economics of this supply arrangement. Sophisticated information and data collection systems have developed in the sugar industry to manage supply areas and volumes. These systems are generally coordinated by the processor to ensure a stable supply chain and include GIS information on field area, daily cane deliveries (quantity and quality), GPS tracking of harvesting and transport units to coordinate scheduling and integrated information systems allowing real time communication to all in the supply chain. These systems are mature and could be readily customised for biomass industries. 172
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Sustainable Biomass Supply Chain fo
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Foreword This report provides an as
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include business development (new p
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Acknowledgments The authors would l
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4.1 Product Options and Supply Chai
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Table 4.2 Assessment of current val
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Figure 3.4 Tracked rigid self-prope
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Executive Summary What the report i
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• Biomass production potential of
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• As the Industry expands, the mo
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Harvesting, transport and storage s
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Biomass processing, supply chain pl
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Key barriers to biomass industries
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Crop-Biomass Production Production
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Figure 1.1 The cropping and pasture
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Table 1.1 Mallee species used for p
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1.1.4 Growth Cycle Mallee System Ma
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northern New South Wales (where it
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Almost 80% of the industry now cuts
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Bark has relatively high ash but as
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Carbon sinks Planting of mallees to
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Table 1.5(a) State Land area devote
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out the fluctuations in farm income
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Mallee system Most of the mallee bi
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inconclusive result may have been d
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For a sustainable woody crop indust
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changed significantly since they we
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Figure 2.2 Biosystems Engineering p
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Whole-of-crop harvesting represents
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During the last decade the harvesti
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single row, as this would improve t
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2.2.2.2 Weight Sugar System The Aus
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Table 2.1 Harvester Comparison Tabl
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The quality of cut may be less impo
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ate than a 170 tonne/ha crop of sta
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Dry Leaf 6.1 - 3.5 17.0 58.9 53.2 T
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Bulk density will be a key consider
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Table 2.4 EM levels in cane supply
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L/T L/T 60 0.97 0.71 80 0.92 0.66 1
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Total 7.5-26 16.5 Mallee System The
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• waiting for mill delivery of em
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perhaps at 10 - 20 km intervals. Th
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transport arrangements, harvest gro
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contractors and growers, and the fa
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experience of the sugar industry wi
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Table 2.11 Alternative harvest paym
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onto the harvester. BR+F still send
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Repairs and maintenance 2.10 Capita
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Figure 2.14 and Table 2.14 describe
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Sichter et al. (2005)), harvest and
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Transport efficiencies may be possi
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3. Transport and Storage Systems Tr
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same time, the potential problems o
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Figure 3.3 Articulated self-propell
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• The harvester will not have any
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Figure 3.7 Gross mass compared with
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external factors dramatically impac
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Figure 3.11 The effect of haulout t
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3.3 Road Transport 3.3.1 Configurat
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Figure 3.15 shows an example of the
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Road distance one way < 20 km 70 km
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Haul distance is largely outside th
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3.6 Recommendations The nature of t
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• The strategy offered lower tota
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sugarcane billets are such that wit
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• Transfer the whole tree product
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Figure 4.5(b) Energy balance of con
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2010). Table 4.2 presents a summary
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4.4.2 Activated charcoal Activated
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Nett Product Value ($/t) $475.00 $
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Table 4.9 presents an estimation of
Page 143 and 144: • Oil from leaf @ $2/kg • Synth
Page 145 and 146: • The mallee oil would be extract
Page 147 and 148: 5. Industry and Business Structures
Page 149 and 150: is conducted into tariff levels on
Page 151 and 152: Bx is % brix in first expressed jui
Page 153 and 154: Hildebrand (2002) estimated that th
Page 155 and 156: also has a flow on effect to the sp
Page 157 and 158: Sugar Industry Illustrative Example
Page 159 and 160: with super size multi-lift bins ove
Page 161 and 162: farmer vs. harvester) is the next l
Page 163 and 164: 6. Supply Chain Planning and Manage
Page 165 and 166: Figure 6.1 Building blocks of the s
Page 167 and 168: weighed against the costs of operat
Page 169 and 170: • There is close contact between
Page 171 and 172: 6.4 Planning, Management Tools and
Page 173 and 174: • Harvest and transport logistics
Page 175 and 176: interface. The system allows users
Page 177 and 178: Case Study 6.2 - Model Application
Page 179 and 180: Relationships between sectors and p
Page 181 and 182: 7. Supply Chain Modelling and Econo
Page 183 and 184: It was assumed that there was a fif
Page 185 and 186: Table 7.2 Scenario two capital equi
Page 187 and 188: Table 7.4 Fuel burn rates harvester
Page 189 and 190: Figure 7.5 Effect of capital equipm
Page 191 and 192: Figure 7.7 Effect of annual tonnes
Page 193: 30 1.8 7.0 12.3 17.5 50 1.1 4.3 7.6
Page 197 and 198: Biomass bulk density has a large im
Page 199 and 200: Vehicles used for infield haulout w
Page 201 and 202: This can be compared with harvest a
Page 203 and 204: While diversification can add value
Page 205 and 206: Appendix 1: Comparative Assessment
Page 207 and 208: and transport conditions. Billet le
Page 209 and 210: that cane production is the most pr
Page 211 and 212: on sugar only, other proceeds (mola
Page 213 and 214: References Agnew, J 2002. A Partici
Page 215 and 216: Enecon 2001. Integrated Tree Proces
Page 217 and 218: Keating, BA, Antony, G, Brennan, LE
Page 219 and 220: Ridge, DR and Linedale, AL, 1997. T
Page 221: Willcox, T, Hussey, B, Chapple, D a
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