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ISA- Portugal held its first workshop on potential and limitations for using animal manure as organic fertilizers

26/03/2020

National Task Force:

After the Kick-off meeting and official presentation of The Portuguese NTF in October 2019, we had a first workshop on the 10/02/2020 to analyse and discuss the potential and limitations for using animal manure as organic fertilizers in a large number of agricultural activities (arable crops, orchards, vineyards). In this workshop, a group of 10 stakeholders performed a SWOT analysis and some future actions of demonstration were designed and scheduled.

Scientific Works:

The research topic “Blending of raw and treated organic materials to produce organic fertilisers (NPC)” from the research line “4.Biobased fertilisers (N, P) and soil enhancers (OC) from agro-residues” of WP2 is led by Joana Prado, pHD student at ISA. She has performed a first screening and characterization of available materials in Portugal and considered two scenarios, blending at farm scale or in a central treatment plant. The first blending were already designed and its agronomic assessment will start soon. These first results were presented at ManuResource and a second presentation was submitted to the Ramiran Conference to be held in September 2020 in Cambridge.

The research topic “Recovered organic materials and composts for precision fertilization of apple orchards and vineyards” from the research line “. Biobased fertilisers (N, P) and soil enhancers (OC) from agro-residues” of WP2 is led by Henrique Pose Guerra, pHD student at ISA. A first study relative to small-scale variability of soil in Vineyards has been performed in order to optimize agro-residues application in a precision fertilization context. These data are being analysed and will soon be submitted for publication. A second experiment dealing with manure application in apple orchard started in March 2020 with the application of three different manures (dairy slurry, dairy FYM and chicken manure). The application of acidified dairy slurry was also tested. Nevertheless, due to the COVID-19 issue, the measurements of GHG emissions scheduled were cancelled.