Belgium Archives - SoildiverAgro

SoildiverAgro at a Training Session for Regional Growers in Belgium

17 December, 2024

Sander Fleerakkers from Proefstation voor de Groenteteelt, a key partner of SoildiverAgro, delivered a training session to 58 regional growers, on December 4th in Belgium. The focus of the session was on cover crops and their interaction with soil life, providing valuable insights into the role of cover crops in enhancing soil health. During the training, key results from SoildiverAgro’s ongoing research were shared, highlighting the significant impact of cover crops on soil ecosystems and biodiversity. These findings further demonstrate…

Pomona potatoes planting day

8 May, 2023

Pomona is a consumer-driven cooperative agroforestry farm applying sustainable agricultural management (agroecological farming) aiming at a perfect balance between a fully developed ecosystem and profitable crop production. On the 2nd of May, the field trial was prepared for planting potatoes. The planting itself was executed the next day, using a less automated and advanced way to limit the impact on the soil structure. Two workers on the back of the tractor planted 2 varieties of potatoes: Alouette, a red potato,…

Visit to the trial fields of Inagro

26 October, 2022

This past 6th of October, Inagro (Flanders, Belgium) organized a visit to the fields where its organic trial farm is located. The program included a discussion of the past growing season and a tour of the field trials. It concluded with a networking event in the farm shed. Thirty people were welcomed during the visit, including a large number of organic farmers but advisers and people from various agricultural supply companies also participated. The main focus of the visit was…

SoildiverAgro at the FestILVO

22 September, 2022

ILVO, the partner of SoildiverAgro, celebrated its 90th anniversary by means of a 4-day festival called FestILVO. Approximately 7000 people and 800 students visited FestILVO to learn about new food like algae, precision farming with drones, characterising soil organisms by advanced DNA-based methods like long-read sequencing and much more. On 2 professional days, more than 1000 participants followed a diversity of research topics in detail. One of the topics was “Speeding up soil health, six challenges for the future” to…

SoildiverAgro Posters for Case Studies

12 July, 2022

We created a round of posters to inform you of what we are accomplishing in each Case Study We hope you enjoy them! https://soildiveragro.eu/publications/posters/

SoildiverAgro celebrates ‘festILVO’ on september in Merelbeke

20 June, 2022

ILVO, a research institute in Flanders, Belgium, conducting international research on agriculture, fisheries and food, and partner of SoildiverAgro, becomes 90! To celebrate, ILVO organises a national, multi-day festival to which stakeholders and all interested are invited. On 15, 16, 18 and 19 September, you are welcome at the festival site in Merelbeke, in the middle of 200 hectares of trial fields. festILVO, a unique FOOD festival that, together with the many tasting sessions, also serves up the production process…

1st SoildiverAgro Field day at POMONA

28 March, 2022

On Saturday 19th of February, around 100 brave participants participated at the first POMONA field day to visit the SoildiverAgro case study, the farm, shop, orchard and ‘food-forest’. The word ‘brave’ is especially added because the weather was very bad (rainy and windy) due to the remainders of the strong storm Eunice that passed one day before and caused a lot of damage in Belgium and other European countries. Luckily, the damage to the Pomona area was limited. But, as…

New field trial studies soil physical and chemical conditions, and biodiversity on wheat production

4 October, 2021

Due to the Corona-crisis, the field trial of Pomona, partner in the SoildiverAgro-project following an agro-ecological way of farming, has been postponed. During the last months, finally, the field trial was started to investigate the effect of 3 different applications of organic matter on wheat production, soil physical and chemical conditions, and biodiversity. This case study will test different sources of green manure for wheat production at Atlantic Central (Belgium). After harvest of the Triticum spelta crop of 2021 and collection…

Open field day at the organic experimental farm of Inagro in Belgium

17 September, 2021

On the 29th of September Inagro organizes an open field day at the organic research farm (‘Biovelddag’). The visit to the trial fields includes a presentation of the SoildiverAgro Case study and some first results. (Case study 7: cover crop mixtures, a promotor of soil biodiversity in potato crops?) This visit will be held in Dutch and starts at 16h at Gabriëlstraat 11, 8800 Rumbeke-Beitem, Belgium). Other topics addressed will include a variety of trials of vegetable crops, reduced soil…