Major pasta industries have started to evaluate the environmental footprint of their productions exploiting both Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and, in some cases, Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) methodologies. In this research, two different pasta production chains were considered: a “high-quality pasta” chain (referred here as “local or regional scenario”), which follows traditional procedures in a Tuscan farm that uses only ancient wheat varieties; and a “conventional pasta” one (referred here as “global or industrial scenario”), in which pasta is produced using national and international grains, following industrial processes. An integrated methodology based on both an Environmental Impacts ANalysis (EIAN) approach and the LCA has been developed, analyzing five environmental compartments (i.e., soil, water, air, resources, climate change) and a total number of ten expected environmental pressures. As a result, the high-quality pasta chain shows a better performance in terms of risk reduction of soil degradation and agrobiodiversity loss, as well as the consumption of non-renewable resources; this is mainly due to the use of lower quantity of chemicals, a lower mechanization level in the agricultural phase, and the use of ancient grains. However, the conventional pasta chain prevails in terms of a more efficient exploitation of land and water resources, due to higher yields and the use of more efficient sprayers, and also in reducing noise emitted by the overall production equipment.

The dried fruit beetle (Carpophilus hemipterus) is considered a key pest of dates, infesting fruits both in the field and during storage. Control measures against the species rely on the use of chemicals or heat treatments based on sunlight, hot air or radio frequency (RF) applications. Previous investigations that have aimed to define control procedures for a total disinfestation using RF treatments with different exposure durations have shown the typical behavior of adults in some trials, which, under the influence of temperature increases, started to escape from infested fruits. We focused on the application of different RF voltage-time combinations to induce the emigration of C. hemipterus adults from dates in order to produce a complete disinfestation. The results showed that the application of 2500 V RF for 8–10 min to infested dates resulted in nearly 100% of adults escaping from fruits, thereby cleaning the commodity with low or no mortality inside and outside the dates. These achievements provide a new strategy for controlling key insect pests of dates that could be applied at an industrial scale, allowing for the quick disinfestation of fruits without affecting the fruit with harmful substances, such as residues from chemical treatments, and without unwanted side effects on date quality.

Polymeric materials are largely used in horticulture for mulching and irrigation, but their long degradation time causes various environmental and agronomic problems, hence should be removed at the end of the crop cycle. Among different mechanized techniques for collecting polymer residues from the field, the single-phase one is the most effective, since the plastic film and irrigation tape lifting, cleaning, and collection operations are done in a single pass, though, in most cases, the implements used in Kazakhstan still need an operator to manage the winding mechanism. The authors, who developed a completely automatic plastic retriever, based on a hydraulic drive with a friction clutch for winding up the plastic materials, assessed the power need of the implement, in order to compare it with the power need of similar implements, where the winding mechanism is hand-operated and consequently power consumption is high, due to the need to stop and start the engine many times. In this study the parameters of the hydraulic drive were determined by analytical calculation, starting from pressure and speed data measured on the hydraulic line and velocity and traction resistance of the implemented measured during the field tests. The maximum power need to drive the winding mechanisms resulted 1.86 kW at a forward speed of the unit of 1.8 m⋅s-1. Secondary the operation costs were broadly assessed, finding that they were about 43% less then when using man driven equipment.