FARMWISE: How to protect water in soil

• The FARMWISE project is focused on developing methods that will impact the accumulation of water resources in small agricultural catchments.
• The project utilizes sensors and monitors to track not just the quantity of water present in the soil environment but also its quality.
• The tools being created are designed to help farmers adapt to climate change and ensure optimal crop planning tailored to the specific water-soil and climatic conditions of their area.
• One of the tasks being undertaken is the transformation of organic waste generated on the farm – into biochar – and its use as a soil amendment.

The project, part of the European Horizon Europe program, addresses the future management of agricultural resources and water innovations for a sustainable Europe. The significance of this project is directly explained by its participants—in an era of constant population growth and, with it, increasing demands for food, water, and energy, agricultural production faces challenges that are crucial for the security of future generations.  – Through continuous development, we reach the resource limits our planet can offer. In our quest for constant growth, we optimize food production processes to increase output as efficiently as possible. As a result, we disrupt sustainable development by forgetting about our surrounding environment, because here and now, we must meet the population's demand for food. Farmers, in meeting these challenges, are forced to fertilize their crops and protect them from various diseases, and long-term droughts. Unfortunately, such actions negatively impact the environment, leading to disruptions in local ecosystems to the extent that the effects of these changes are often irreversible – reads the project description.

Water cycle in agriculture

As Dr. Wiesław Fiałkiewicz emphasizes, the idea to participate in the FARMWISE project originated from a project previously implemented – WATERAGRI. Scientists from the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences were looking for something that would continue the actions already taken. That's when the European Commission announced a new competition. Researchers from the university joined it, proposing the same research object, especially since in the WATERAGRI project, they had developed a hydrological model they intended to expand in subsequent research by introducing further innovations. This is a numerical model of a catchment area that includes a farm (the model is overseen by Dr. Arkadiusz Głogowski).

The essence of the project is to develop methods that will influence the accumulation of water resources in small agricultural catchments, says Professor Agnieszka Medyńska-Juraszek. Equally important in the project are innovations related to water purification and treatment in the environment. In this case, purification is related to agricultural production – on one hand, it's about providing plants with high-quality water, but on the other hand, ensuring that water flowing out of the farm is not polluted and overly loaded with biogens, which result from the fertilization process. Professor Medyńska-Juraszek from the Institute of Soil Science, Plant Nutrition, and Environmental Protection emphasizes the researchers' aim to close the water cycle in the agricultural ecosystem, which would result in plants more efficiently using the nutrients introduced with fertilization, with a reduced burden on the soil and water environment.

Therefore, some partners involved in the FARMWISE project are working on technologies related to increasing water retention in the soil and purifying the water absorbed by crop plants, ensuring better crop quality. The project also considers differences resulting from the specifics of each country – for example, Spain, one of the project partners, faces issues not only with drought but also with water and soil salinity. This is caused by a lack of rainfall, leading Spaniards to irrigate crops using saline waters, which must undergo desalination processes. Hence, there is a need to implement technologies that can efficiently (and easily) remove salt to allow the use of treated water in agricultural cultivation, especially in the south of the country.

How to use new technologies

The project also utilizes innovations related to monitoring water conditions and quality, employing various types of sensors and monitors that track not only the amount of water in the soil environment but also its quality.

– The project leader is Lund University in Sweden, which invited us to collaborate due to our previous experience in completed projects – says Dr. Fiałkiewicz. Dr. Arkadiusz Głogowski adds that the most crucial task awaiting researchers from the University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Wrocław (which they have already begun) is building a database on the broadly understood environment, which will include components such as the quality and quantity of water available in agriculture, meteorological data affecting plant development, soil data, legal regulations that farmers must adhere to, as well as agricultural activities in the research areas of the project (eight areas each in a different climatic zone of Europe).

However, there's a lack of a comprehensive database that would gather data enabling the analysis of any agricultural process, considering legal regulations of a specific region, across different spatial levels such as locally, nationally, in climatic zones, and across Europe.

The European agriculture database being created at the University of Environmental and Life Sciences will, in the later stages of the project, feed artificial intelligence tools. In other words, the database will serve as a source of knowledge for artificial intelligence, which will assist in making decisions concerning water quality protection systems, offering guidelines that enable farmers and public administration to make substantively justified decisions, explains Dr. Głogowski. He notes that at this stage, it's premature to discuss wide-open access to the database – some of the data to be implemented is available, but other data is considered sensitive as water is deemed a critical infrastructure element crucial for the security of a given population.

– But that's a discussion yet to come. At this stage, we're interested in a tool that the farmer will use, supported by artificial intelligence –  says Dr. Głogowski. Professor Medyńska-Juraszek adds that all innovations in FARMWISE are related to protecting and increasing water resources in a given ecosystem and agricultural system. – We aim for synergy; data collected in monitoring, analyzed by artificial intelligence, will answer how much fertilizer should be used to achieve effects, whether in the same dosage across the entire crop area or in varying amounts on different sections – explains Professor Agnieszka Medyńska-Juraszek, emphasizing that water is a scarce resource worldwide, with many areas in Europe having very poor quality due to both natural factors, such as geological composition, and anthropogenic pollutants present in these waters.

Farmers, crops, and climate change

Researchers at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences hope that the tools they develop will help farmers adapt to climate change and plan crop rotation in the coming years in a way that ensures optimal planning of crops adapted to the water-soil and climatic conditions of their area.

– Remember, planning involves not only the structure of crops but also the structure of fertilizer and plant protection products usage. The effectiveness and efficiency of fertilization depend on the amount of water accumulated in the soil. To put it simply, fertilizers need to dissolve, so the soil must be moist at the time of fertilization. If plants are 'fed' fertilizers during a drought, it leads to significant losses. It's estimated that globally, the efficiency of fertilization is about 30 percent, and in Europe about 50 percent – says Professor Agnieszka Medyńska-Juraszek.

Dr. Arkadiusz Głogowski, when asked about farmers' openness to new solutions that scientists are working on, says that younger generations, colloquially 'born with a tablet or phone in hand,' are more open to innovations.

– The middle generation of farmers today are businessmen. For them, consulting in this area is a waste of time because too many people over the last 20-30 years have exploited agriculture based on the belief that crops grow by themselves for farmers. We have to work hard today to regain that trust. Fortunately, in workshops we organized together with agricultural advisory services, we had the opportunity to work with the younger generation, which as mentioned, is open to new solutions, especially those that can optimize their parents' work – admits Dr. Głogowski, who specializes in modeling environmental phenomena.

What can biochar do

In the FARMWISE project, besides building a database, one of the tasks being implemented is the transformation of organic waste generated on the farm – into biochar – and its use as a soil amendment.

– This is an innovation we will be testing. Biochar added to the soil will affect the increase of water resources – it has very high porosity and can retain water. But it also acts like activated carbon, so it has a detoxifying function, removing pollutants from soil water that could potentially reach groundwater – says Professor Agnieszka Medyńska-Juraszek. She adds that biochar can be obtained from agricultural wastes such as straws, seed husks, corn cobs, and press cakes, which remain after the production process and should be re-utilized.

Researchers at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences intend to apply a simple technology that will be replicable and will not require significant investment from the farmer. Such in-house fertilizer production could be an alternative to organic fertilizers generated on the farm, reducing waste management costs. Above all, however, the advantage of biochar over other organic fertilizers lies in its very high stability in the soil, meaning the effect of its application to the soil lasts longer, and it does not lead to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, as is the case with other organic fertilizers.

– This is another significant element of our project because we are dealing not only with a lack of water but also with a carbon deficiency in the soils. Both phenomena are linked to climate change. Equally important, the lack of carbon in the soil in the proper amount disrupts the process of absorbing other elements provided to plants with fertilization. In plain terms, the use of biochar will affect the efficiency of nitrogen fertilization – says Prof. Medyńska-Juraszek.

Furthermore, Dr. Fiałkiewicz adds that in this way, the FARMWISE project connects to the previous WATERAGRI project, which focused on closing the cycle related to the soil-atmospheric circulation of nutrients, to minimize losses and thus its impact on the environment.

Water worldwide is a scarce resource, and in many parts of Europe, it is of very poor quality due to both natural factors, such as the geological structure of some areas, and anthropogenic pollutants present in these waters.

– In the final stage of the project, we will also select the most promising innovations and attempt to forecast their impact on mitigating climate change for the years 2030, 2050, and 2100 at different spatial scales. The results of these forecasts will also feed the database, and thus artificial intelligence, resulting in the recommendation of strategies in which regions can achieve the greatest benefits. And because artificial intelligence, simplifying its function, is an advanced statistical tool, all forecasts and possible changes in environmental protection strategies will trigger a new chain of dependencies leading to new conclusions and recommendations – say the scientists from the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences.

This approach highlights the project's comprehensive strategy to address agricultural challenges, focusing on sustainable water management, innovation, and the use of advanced technologies to secure a more sustainable and efficient agricultural future in the face of climate change and resource limitations.

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