Institut für Pflanzenschutz in Ackerbau und Grünland
Organic vegetable production in Germany will face major challenges in the coming years: Adaptation to climate change, changing consumer habits, demographic change, new (bio)technological processes, evolving guidelines for organic production, uncertain availability of inputs and unpredictable events such as disrupted supply chains. To successfully meet these challenges, organic open field vegetable farms must demonstrate a high degree of resilience. However, there is a lack of scientific knowledge on topics such as risks in plant protection, optimising fertilisation and reducing water consumption. Plant diseases caused by microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, oomycetes and viruses) pose a major threat to plant production worldwide. In organic farming in particular, this threat has increased dramatically in recent years, as on the one hand high demands are placed on the quality of products, but on the other hand there are hardly any direct measures available to successfully combat diseases. In addition, new harmful organisms are spreading as a result of globalisation, trade and climate change. Reliable identification of the organisms is essential for taking preventive and, in a few cases, curative measures.The ROBUSTGemüse project therefore has the following overarching objectives: 1.) To document the status quo of resilience in the organic field vegetable sector in Germany (field vegetables and horticulture), 2.) To develop a common understanding of the term ‘resilience’ between practitioners and scientists and of the factors that promote and inhibit farm resilience, 3. ) Further development and scaling of existing operational innovations and testing of new ideas that increase operational resilience within the framework of practical research networks and 4) Enabling companies to assess and evaluate their own resilience. The focus here is on the close interlinking of practice, consulting and science.The ROBUSTGemuese project aims to investigate the occurrence of currently relevant and novel microbial pathogens in the organic cultivation of potatoes, carrots and onions in Germany; the focus is on the organism groups fungi, oomycetes and bacteria. These investigations are carried out in close co-operation with farmers and advisors in order to establish a connection between the occurrence of pathogens and various site factors and cultivation measures. To this end, diagnostic methods for characterising relevant and new pathogens are being established and applied in order to enable pathogens to be detected as quickly as possible in the future.Building on the findings from the first year of the project, established biological plant protection measures, such as adapted crop rotations, will be tested and new methods/strategies for regulating relevant pathogens will be developed. The investigations will initially be carried out on the most economically significant host/pathogen combinations. Suitable strategies will then be tested for their transferability to other crops and pathogens. In addition, it will be analysed whether the methods used increase the resilience of the crops to other biotic and abiotic stressors. It will also be examined whether selected methods, e.g. for reducing the vitality of survival structures of fungi and oomycetes, are effective in the long term.The methods used are intended to maintain or, if possible, increase land productivity in an environmentally friendly and resource-saving manner and to counter the effects of advancing climate change. The project thus contributes to improving the understanding of the interaction between potatoes, carrots and onions and various microbial pathogens as well as between crop/pathogen and plant protection measures and to promoting greater agrobiodiversity on the land used for agriculture. An interdisciplinary research approach is pursued, focussing on the following main research areas: Continuous pathogen diagnostics, plant protection measures in arable and horticultural crops.
Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity
