Water is a precious and increasingly seasonally scarce resource, even in Central Europe. In agriculture and horticulture, water consumption and resource efficiency are among the key challenges. In view of political and social expectations that producers should conserve resources, the search for sustainable solutions is more urgent than ever. Although modern phenotyping methods theoretically enable the precise use of water and nutrients, in practice there is often a lack of concrete implementation of these technologies.

This is where the IrriStaud 2.0 project comes in. Funded by EU Interreg, it aims to achieve a more resource-efficient production of perennials through the use of advanced sensor technology and intelligent control systems. This technology aims to optimize water use and precisely control nutrient supply to minimize the environmental footprint of production while maximizing quality and yields.

As part of the project, we are using modern sensor technology to determine the water and nutrient requirements of various crops in real time. The resulting data enables a precise analysis of the supply status of the plants. In addition, we are developing an irrigation control system based on the data collected in real time. This system ensures that plants receive exactly the amount of water and nutrients they need. Another important aspect of our project is the graphical processing of the sensor data. This data visualization provides production managers with valuable insights into the condition of their crops and enables them to make informed and quick decisions. To ensure that our developments meet the actual needs of the field, we seek continuous exchange with horticultural advisors and practitioners. This dialog helps us to develop needs-based products that are actually used in practice and are useful to producers. A particular focus is on cross-border cooperation between Dutch and German experts, as perennial plant cultivation is of great importance on both sides of the border.

Partners:

• Compas Agro
  The lead partner Compas Agro is an agricultural consultancy from Venlo. The company is at the center of a network of entrepreneurs, educational institutions, government organizations and research institutions, and is committed to knowledge transfer in arable farming and horticulture.
• Yookr
  Yookr is a software company with a focus on horticulture and agribusiness. Yookr develops sensor and software solutions in the "Internet of Things" for modern plant production. Real-time data visualization enables farms to optimally control their production and thus produce efficiently.
• Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences
  Prof. Rolf Becker's working group at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences focuses on remote sensing. As part of the project, the working group carries out various measurements on plants (e.g. hyperspectral, LIFT). Both mobile UAV systems and stationary systems are used.
• KoGa
  The Horticultural Competence Center is a network for strengthening the transfer of knowledge between research and practice. KoGa communicates the project results and promotes the exchange between the project partners and external stakeholders, such as practical farms, horticultural consultants, politicians and the general public.

Duration: 01.01.2023 – 31.12.2026

Funding: IrriStaud 2.0 is financially supported by the Interreg program of the EU as well as by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Province of Limburg and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.

Project website: https://irristaud.eu

Contact: Dr. Jan Ellenberger; ellenberger@ko-ga.eu; ellenberger@uni-bonn.de

Water is one of the central resources in fruit growing. Not only is it needed for the irrigation of crops, but increasingly due to the consequences of climate change, for frost protection irrigation in spring when late frosts endanger earlier flowering and as protection against sunburn of the developing fruits during midsummer heat waves. In order to provide the necessary water, increasing numbers of irrigation tanks or basins are being planned. Planning approval procedures are complex due to ecological but also social aspects. Fruit growers usually have to apply compensatory measures for these irrigation systems.

In this project, we investigate which possibilities for ecological enhancement can be used in an existing pond, how this affects the biodiversity of the aquatic and adjacent terrestrial area and to what extent the water quality of ecologically upgraded ponds meets the requirements for irrigation water with regard to mineral content and pathogen occurrence. The pond to be upgraded is located at the DLR Rheinpfalz research site in Klein-Altendorf. In its immediate vicinity there is another pond, which is not upgraded.

By documenting biodiversity at and in the ecologically upgraded ponds, information will be provided for the approval authorities that may affect the requirement for compensatory measures. Likewise, the results should convince farm managers that such valuable ponds can be used for irrigation.

Partners:

• Universität Bonn (Institut für Agrarökologie und Organischen Landbau)
• DLR-Rheinpfalz

Duration: 1.9.2022 – 31.12.2023

Financing: QS Wissenschaftsfonds

Contact: Dr. Jan Ellenberger (ellenberger(at)uni-bonn.de), Dr. Andreé Hamm (a.hamm(at)uni-bonn.de)

Tomato is a main EU agricultural commodity, cultivated all over Europe in open and protected field and in glasshouses, representing a biological and agronomical model crop. Combined water and nutrient stress is a major problem for tomato farmers and solutions are needed to safeguard yields, while preserving the environment.

The overall goal of TOMRES is to enhance resilience to combined water and nutrient stress in tomato and to maximize water (WUE) and nutrient use efficiency (NUE) by designing and testing in the field (open and protected) novel combinations of genotypes and management practices reducing the environmental impact of agricultural activities.

To this aim, TOMRES will select, among over 10,000 available accessions, rootstocks and scions tolerating combined stress, while retaining fruit quality and yield, taking advantage of innovative screening approaches. Novel traits, in particular belowground, to be exploited in breeding, will be identified. The role of selected hormones (strigolactones and brassinosteroids) will be studied to identify further resilience traits. TOMRES will test and optimize sustainable crop management strategies such as legume intercropping, precision fertilization and irrigation techniques, manipulation of symbiotic microorganisms, and the use of rootstocks more suited to water and nutrient uptake from the soil.

Novel genotypes X management strategies will be developed with the goal of reducing N and P application by at least 20%, water input by 40%, while granting environmental sustainability and economic viability of the solutions proposed. Testing will be integrated with analysis of environmental (greenhouse emissions, water quality), and of socio-economic impact. Agronomical, environmental, and economical data will be processed to construction of models and of a Decision Support System.

Demonstration and dissemination activities will follow the whole course of the project, and will transfer the results to different environments and other cropping systems, thus ensuring the widest impact of the gained knowledge on the EU economy. Trans-disciplinary knowledge transfer among farmers, breeders, industries, associations and scientists will be granted by a solid multi-actor approach since the planning stage.

In this project, the two German partners Bonn University and Neurather Gärtner are working closely together in research and practice application. Central to the research of Dr. Simone Röhlen-Schmittgen at the university’s INRES Horticultural Science is the early detection of drought and nutrient stress with optical sensors. Being more sensitive to stress signals than the human eye they can be an important early warning system. With these methods Ms. Röhlen-Schmittgen aim to select appropriate tomato genotypes out of the many possible breeding lines. She is supported in her work by doctoral student Jan Ellenberger and colleagues Matheus Kuska and PD Dr. Ann-Kathrin Mahlein from INRES Phytopathology. Prof. Dr. Andreas Schieber and Dr. Fabian Weber from the Institute for Molecular Food Technology investigate the nutritious compounds of tomato and will determine which varieties are particularly tasty and healthy. Dr. Hannah Jaenicke from KoGa leads the dissemination activities of the project.

Films of the project on YouTube:

1. Europe teams up for tomato’s future in the TOMRES project
2. TOMRES projects the benefits of the optimized tomato production
3. The different types of Tomatoes from a Farmer's Perspective
4. The Red Fruit: What Makes Tomato So Special?

Partners:

• University of Turin, Italy (Lead)
• University of Bonn (KoGa, Institute for Crop Science and Resource Use (INRES) Horticultural Sciences and  Institute for Molecular Food Technology)
• Neurather Gärtner GbR
• 22 further partners from Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Israel, Slowenia, Romania, Great Britain, Belgium

Duration: 1.6.2017 – 30.11.2020

Funding: EU Horizon 2020. Grant Agreement No.727929 

Project website: www.tomres.eu

Contact: Dr. Hannah Jaenicke (h.jaenicke(at)uni-bonn.de), Dr. Simone Röhlen-Schmittgen (s.schmittgen(at)uni-bonn.de)

A cooperation of the University Bonn (INRES Horticultural Science and Centre for Development Research (ZEF)), the DLR and partners from the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya, investigates the plant physiological basics of chilling requirements of fruit trees.  The chilling requirement was determined using the most used models: chilling hours (CH) after Weinberger 1950, chill units (CU) after Richardson et al. 1974 and chill portions (CP) after Erez et al. 1987.

Using 160 container trees and three sweet cherry varieties, eight climate scenarios were investigated because in our temperate zones, cherries are the fruit species most influenced by climate change with resulting warmer winters. The popular variety "Schneiders späte Knorpelkirsche" for example has a high chilling requirement of 1.500 CH. The three varieties were selected by their specific chilling requirements (low: 500 CH; medium: 1.000 CH; high: 1.500 CH). To simulate recent climate change with a temperature increase of maximum 2°C, part of the container trees are placed in a non-heated greenhouse.

Responsible: Heiko Kaufmann, University of Bonn (INRES Horticultural Science)

Partners: Martin Balmer (DLR), Dr. Eike Lüdeling (ICRAF, Kenya), Prof. Dr. Jens Gebauer (Hochschule Rhein-Waal)

Duration: 2013 -2017

Contact: Dr. Michael Blanke (mmblanke(at)uni-bonn.de)