News & Events

Final activities of the Domino project

At the end of the project, the main activities focused on implementing the knowledge and practical experiences gained during the project implementation. Meetings with producers and advisers were held, where a short clip about the experiments conducted within the project was also presented.

Workshop for advisors on organic farming of the National Centre of Agricultural Advisory Service

The results of the research work performed were presented during a hybrid workshop organized on 27 July 2021 at the Radom centre of the National Centre of Agricultural Advisory Service, which is in charge of the public extension activity on organic farming of Poland. More than 80 advisors from all the regional centres and some private advisors attended the event either in person and online. The two major aspects tested in the project, use of external sources of organic fertilizers and the application of living mulches, were presented in details. Beside the technical aspects, the impact of these practices on biodiversity and the economics deriving from their implementation were lively discussed. Indeed, the interest of the advisors was particularly focused on the financial side deriving from the use of living mulches, as these could lead to both savings or increased income for the farmer as well as to the provision of externalities that could  be useful to highlight during the process of definition of national or local policies supporting the implementation of such agronomical practice. An interesting output of the workshop was the expression of interest from several participants in developing trials or projects to spread the information about this agro-ecological approach of orchard management, as they considered that this soil orchard management system could find a good rate of adoption by farmers.

The last workshop of DOMINO in Poland is dedicated to the end-users of the project: farmers

The last dissemination event of the DOMINO project was carried out in Poland on 28 July 2021, and was targeted to farmers belonging to an association of organic producers – Biopomorze – active in the Baltic regions of Poland. The meeting, organized at the farm of Mrs. Małgorzata Siłakowska in Chrzanowo served also to discuss the method used by the farmer in adapting the use of living mulches to her specific conditions. Indeed, the project organized in the farm a demonstration trial using pumpkin as the living mulch on the row. The interest of the farmer to pumpkin was due to the possibility to have an additional source of raw materials for the production of a special ketchup based on this plant from ground (that in the tree row) that is not normally used for any crop production. Nevertheless, the soil conditions on her site, a young orchard on a sandy soil with  limited water availability, has prompted her to grow the pumpkins around the trees and not on the whole row, mainly  to limit weed development. It was thus interesting to discuss with her and the other members of the association,  about 20 persons, the differences between the set up of the trial with those made in the Grojec area with other farmers or at the Institute experimental site. It has been a nice example of a participatory approach and of the benefits deriving  from the confrontation between the theoretical and  practical implementation of an innovation. The enthusiasm of the host and of the other participants about the project outcomes was also warmed by the familiar set up of the meeting, ended with a testing of the ketchup and other specialities prepared by Mrs Małgorzata, enjoyed  by all the participants.