Set-up of national dissemination forum (NDF)
The 3rd LEX4BIO NDF in Denmark was set up and coordinated by the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) on July 7, 2022.
The EIP concept of local Operational Groups (OG) is not adopted in Denmark due to a political decision at the national level. Therefore the LEX4BIO national dissemination forum (NDF) in Denmark was organised differently, that is, in collaboration with the agricultural organisation SEGES (the Danish National Agricultural Advisory and R&D center). SEGES’ national chief consultant in fertilisation, Torkild Birkmose, has in recent years organised a cross-sectoral Fertilisers Network for professionals with particular interest and responsibilities in fertilisers, fertilisation strategies and related technologies.
The Fertilisers Network comprises several different types of stakeholders, namely:
- agro-industry and fertiliser company representatives,
- local and national agricultural advisors,
- researchers from the two main universities with agricultural departments (Aarhus University and University of Copenhagen),
- technology innovation centers (e.g. the Danish Technological Institute)
- NGOs within agriculture, environment, climate (e.g. Danish Climate Think Tank Concito)
- administrators from the Agricultural Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency
This Fertilisers Network will form the LEX4BIO NDF in Denmark. In the EU-H2020 project Nutri2Cycle the Fertilisers Network play a similar role, and activities will therefore be coordinated between the two projects.
Workshops
The Fertilisers Network meets for a full-day workshop in June/July every year with all the members to present new ideas, results and discuss current challenges in fertilisation, fertiliser use and technologies for either producing or applying fertilisers.
These NDF workshops are planned to ensure effective transfer of knowledge about the project’s key outcomes and findings of relevance in both Denmark and EU. Furthermore, we make sure that workshops contain information relevant for each of the stakeholder groups, as well as info on the legal framework for nutrients recovery and market placing.
In 2020, the Covid-19 situation unfortunately forced SEGES to cancel the workshop event.
However, in 2021 the workshop was held on 1st July in collaboration with UCPH at our experimental farm, where we could communicate LEX4BIO outcomes and results of the project so far.
In 2022 we met on the 7th of July at the advisory organization LandboNord in northern Jutland. We had a total of 24 participants.
The day started with a warm welcoming coffee followed by experimental field site visits starting with the field trial with different forms of P starter fertilizer (incl. biobased) for spr. barley. Camilla Lemming provided the background of P response trials and preliminary conclusions. Then we moved to the field trial with N response with spring oats on peat soils. Julie Therese Christensen told the participants about the background for these N response trials and preliminary conclusions. The last field trial before lunch was the one with the different forms of P starter fertilizer (incl. biobased) for silage maize where again Camilla gave us the story behind these trials and preliminary conclusions.
In the afternoon, the day continued with a workshop seminar on the following topics:
- Current soil-plant nutrient availability issues – participants brought up for discussion common problems and challenges from their daily work.
- A larger fraction of Danish livestock slurry (+30%) is now being anaerobically digested, and this is expected to increase further in the coming years. How is this affecting the slurry digestate fertilizer value, and how do we overcome the problems with decreasing fertilizer value due to increasing proportion of DM rich co-substrates? – a presentation by T. Birkmose and subsequent discussion.
- Is there a need for more biobased and carbon-neutral recycling fertilisers in a time of increasing prizes and supply-crisis? – a presentation of preliminary outcomes of the Nutri2Cycle and LEX4BIO project by Lars S. Jensen and subsequent discussion.
- Demand for new field trials and studies in the next year presented by T. Birkmose
Overall, the participants were very interested in the topics addressed during the meeting and asked lots of questions especially in relation to the potential of new technologies for producing bio-based fertilizer (BBF) products, due to current difficulties in the fertilizer market caused by the war in Ukraine and energy crisis. During the morning field experiment tour, we saw trials with starter fertilisers, including some BBFs. In the afternoon, meeting with talks and discussion, where Lars Stoumann Jensen informed about NUTRI2CYCLE activities, the participants again expressed great interest in the developments of new BBF and the fertiliser company YARA underlined that this is now also a main business strategy for them, along with developments on green ammonia.
The discussion illustrated that the activities of current Nutri2Cycle addressing important climatic, environmental and agronomic issues is of high interest.
Regional Dissemination and communication
At this 3rd NDF meeting in 2022, general LEX4BIO information on preliminary outcomes was distributed as slide handouts and the activities of the project were presented.
UCPH plans to deliver a brochure about the Danish LEX4BIO field trial result during the first half of 2023, when the results from both years of field trials are available.
Images from the morning field trip: field trials with different forms of N and P starter fertilizer (incl. Several biobased) for both spring barley and silage maize, as well as N response trials with spring oats on peat soils.
Back in the meeting room after lunch, Lars Stoumann Jensen made a presentation about BBF research within the EU projects LEX4BIO, Nutri2Cycle and FertiCycle. Lars in particular focused on LEX4BIO work on assessment of potential ammonia loss and fertilizer value of bio-based fertilizers.
