The project partners held their annual meeting in Sicily where they shared the progress of the different work packages, reviewed the results of the analysis of the main indicators that form part of the soil health index, and made progress on the experimental designs to be followed in the next phase of the project.
The European Soil O-Live project recently held its annual meeting in the Italian city of Trapani, in Sicily, where it was confirmed that the objectives set for the first two years of the project have been met.
For two days, each of the entities that form part of the Soil O-Live consortium presented the progress of each of the work packages, reviewing the results of the analysis of the main parameters that form part of the soil health index. Progress was also made on the experimental design to be followed in the next phase of the project, the implementation of remediation and rehabilitation solutions. In this line, the participants in the meeting visited some of the experimental farms of the project in the area, where they took the opportunity to demonstrate the application of organic amendments, as will be done in the second phase of the project, which has already begun.
The coordinator of the project, Antonio José Manzaneda, professor of Ecology at the University of Jaén, said that once the first phase of research has been completed, in which an analysis of the health of the soil in Mediterranean olive groves has been carried out, it is necessary to work mainly along two lines, ‘the first is to begin the experiments of the second phase of the project, the implementation of solutions, and the second is to publish the results of the entire diagnostic phase’, he explained. ‘This should be done over the next 18 months,’ says Professor Antonio Manzaneda.
Furthermore, at this meeting, the possible interaction of the project with the standardisation bodies corresponding to different geographical areas has been discussed. Both Rosa Cepas, from the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE), and Paul Folten, from the European Technical Commission, have highlighted the potential of Soil O-Live to verify and update standardised protocols that are being used in different tasks of the project. On the other hand, the International Olive Oil Council (IOC) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, represented by Juan Antonio Polo, head of the Olive Oil Technology and Environment Department of the IOC and Panos Panagos, senior scientist of the JRC, were present at the meeting, showing their support to the project for its innovation in sustainable soil management and, in the case of the IOC, providing points where their institution could converge with Soil O-Live.
It should be remembered that the first results of the analysis of more than 500 soil samples from 52 farms in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Morocco showed a ‘picture of the soil that could be improved’ in key indicators for its health. The second phase of the project is trying to provide remediation solutions to improve the situation of the olive grove soil, with the application of amendments such as biochar and compost, or the inoculation of micro-organisms such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
The project consortium is made up of fifteen academic institutions and two companies from the olive sector. In Spain, in addition to the University of Jaén, which acts as coordinator, the project has the participation of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) through three research centres (Estación Experimental del Zaidín, Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible and Estación Experimental Aula Dei) and the University of Castilla La Mancha. At the international level, prestigious institutions such as the University of Roma Tre (Italy), the Free University of Berlin (Germany), the University of Tras-Os-Montes e Alto Douro (Portugal), the University of the Aegean (Greece), the Hellenic University of the Mediterranean (Greece), ELGO-DIMITRA (Greece), the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland), the University of Palermo (Italy), the Italian National Research Council – Bari (CNR), the National School of Agriculture of Meknes (Morocco) and as associate partner the University of Bern (Switzerland). Nutesca S.L. and the multinational company DEOLEO GLOBAL S.A., as well as the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE) are participating as companies in the sector.