BEST4SOIL

Project title: Boosting 4 BEST practices for SOIL health in Europe

Project Acronym: BEST4SOIL

Duration time: 01.10.2018 – 30.09.2021

Project Budget: 1 998 299 EUR

Budget for UPWr (role): 80 667 EUR (Partner)

Abstract:

Healthy soils are of major importance for the future of the European horticultural and agricultural crop production. Especially in intensive production systems, soilborne diseases are a major factor with a negative impact on soil health. Newly developed best practices and sound crop rotations permit to maintain, improve or re-establish soil health in Europe.

The BEST4SOIL project will build a community of practice network across Europe by inter-connecting growers, advisers, educators and researchers. Through this network, knowledge ready for practice on 4 best practices for the control of soilborne diseases (compost/organic amendments; green manures/cover crops; anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD); and (bio) solarisation) will be promoted. Open-access databases with information on the range of pathogens affecting host plants will help the practitioners to build appropriate crop rotations and innovative control strategies.

As innovative tool will BEST4SOIL provide tutorial videos (youtube), easily understandable also to growers with limited language skills. Videos, databases and factsheets are edited in 22 official EU languages to facilitate the innovation management of practitioners throughout Europe. The information will be freely accessible and highly comprehensible to guarantee a smooth knowledge transfer from research to practice. BEST4SOIL will deploy local facilitators to set up a network with active communities of practice resulting in an intensive knowledge exchange.

The consortium of BEST4SOIL includes advisers, breeder, communicators, educators, growers, and researchers from eight European countries. Together with facilitators in at least twelve more countries, the network will interconnect an important part of the European growers, advisers and educators, the main stakeholders of BEST4SOIL.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817696