Fertilisation and Irrigation Inital members: - Rodney Thompson - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Fertilisation and Irrigation  Inital members: - Rodney Thompson (Spain): temporary animator - Micheline Verhaeghe (Belgium): temporary secretary - Danny Callens (Belgium) - Leif Nett (Germany) - Kristina Ugrinovic (Slovenia) - Norbert Laun (Germany) - Priit Poldma (Estonia) - Carolina Martinez Gaitan (Spain) - Antonios Chrysargyris (Cyprus) - Laura Prieto Munoz (Spain/Belgium)

Fertilisation and Irrigation Participants - President: To be determined - Secretary: To be determined

Fertilisation and Irrigation Objectives: • To create a forum for active researchers in fertilisation and irrigation, in EU and H2020 associated countries • To facilitate interaction, information exchange, and collaboration between researchers • To facilitate formation of consortia for submissions for EU and other projects • To participate in agenda setting of future EU research programs

Fertilisation and Irrigation Issues to be addressed regarding fertilisation: o Effects on water quality • Contamination with nutrients: N and P • Increasingly strict application of relevant EU Directives o Increasing recent attention to P • Limits on organic P addition • Revision of interprepation of soil test results o Issues related to limits on application of organic amendments • Negative effects on soil quality • Disease suppresion o Grower attitudes • Growers are generally conservative; often older • Reluctant to consider and adopt new practices • Many have small operations with limited financial capacity for newer equipment

Fertilisation and Irrigation Issues to be addressed regarding irrigation: o Limited water supply, particularly in southern Europe • Requirement to optimise water use efficiency • Use of alternative water supplies e.g. residual water, grey water o Water quality • Optimizing management of moderately saline water • Effective use of water with high concentrations of certain elements e.g. B o Leaching of nutrients • Reducing drainage; collecting drainage, recycling drainage o Conservative farmer attitudes o High cost of new technologies o Effective use of sensor technologies • More information on threshold values e.g. Protocols for establishing • Sharing information on threshold values e.g. for matric potential sensors • Procedures to establish threshold values for volumetric soil water content

Fertilisation and Irrigation Actions : • To invite active researchers in fertilization and irrigation of veg. crops, in EU and H2020 associated countries • Prepare list of members showing current research activities and interests • Encourage and facilitate exchange of information between researchers • Contribute to strategic agenda statements to the European Commission concerning future research and innovation topics related to vegetable crop production • Have an annual meeting

Fertilisation and Irrigation  Meeting date or period: • Annual meetings • First in 2016  Comments: • Will also include fertilisation of organically-grown vegetable crops