Ruminants are able to transform non-human-edible forages to high quality protein such as milk and meat. In the discussion of the future role of ruminants in global food production, there are strong arguments that the decreasing area of arable land mainly should be used for human nutrition and ruminant nutrition and should mainly be based on grasslands and by-products from food production. Cover crops (=catch crops or intermediate crops) are usually grown between successive cash crops and are grown as green manure and ploughed in before establishment of the succeeding crop. Short lived forage species like Westerwold or Italian ryegrass, forage rape, fodder kale and vetches allow, besides all beneficial ecosystem services of traditional catch crops, additional harvesting of forage. The forage quality of catch crops is often underestimated. Many farmers in northwestern Europe have rediscovered the role of growing catch crops as strategy to make their farms more sustainable and resilient.
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R4D
Resilience For Dairy
Agricultural run-off and subsurface drainage tiles transport a significant amount of nitrogen and phosphorus leached after fertilization. alchemia-nova GmbH in collaboration with University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna developed two multi-layer vertical filter systems to address the agricultural run-off issue, which has been installed on the slope of an agricultural field in Mistelbach, Austria. While another multi-layer addressing subsurface drainage water is implemented in Gleisdorf, Austria. The goal is to develop a drainage filter system to retain water and nutrients. Both multi-layer filter systems contain biochar and other substrates with adsorption properties of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus). The filter system can be of practical use if an excess of nutrients being washed out is of concern in the fields of the practitioner by keeping the surrounding waters clean. This approach may result in economic value by re-using the saturated biochar as fertilizer and improving the soil structure, thus increasing long-term soil fertility. Link: https://wateragri.eu/a-bio-inspired-multilayer-drainage-system/
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No 858735This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No 858735. FACTSHEET NANOCELLULOSE MEMBRANES FOR NUTRIENT RECOVERY Key information Functionalized nanocellulose membranes can take up nitrate and phosphate. These membranes can be put in a water treatment unit. As the membranes are biobased, degradable materials, they can after use be added to the soil, thus returning the leached nutrients back for their original purpose providing fertilizers (nutrient recycling).
Because variables such as temperature and humidity have a profound effect on the activity of crop pests, diseases and natural enemies, the ability to monitor environmental conditions within a crop has always been important for crop protection.