Best4Soil

Healthy soils are of major importance for the future of the European horticultural and agricultural crop production. Especially in intensive production systems, soil borne diseases are a major factor with a negative impact on soil health. Newly developed best practices and sound crop rotations permit to maintain, improve or re-establish soil health in Europe. With Best4Soil we are building a community of practice network across Europe by inter-connecting growers, advisers, educators and researchers. This network promotes knowledge ready for practice on 4 best practices (compost, green manure, anaerobic disinfestation, (bio) solarisation) for the control of soil borne diseases. Therefore we build a website and organize meetings and events in 20 European countries where we exchange knowledge on soil health with our communities of practice. The main objective of the Best4Soil thematic network is to maintain, improve or re-establish soil health in Europe. We provide open-access databases with information on the range of pathogens and nematodes that affect vegetable, arable and cover crops to help practitioners to build appropriate crop rotations and innovative control strategies.