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#10 Louis: Soil microbial responses to land use change
How do changes in land use and plant community affect the activity of soil microbes and their carbon use efficiency? Louis is a PhD student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU). He conducts field experiments to see how microbial communities in the soil respond to changes in plant communities in terms of their activity and carbon turn-over. Department & Group: Department of Soil and Environment, Group of Nutrient Cycling, SLU Supervisors: Anke M. Herrmann, Johanna Wetterlind, Martin Weih, Stefano Manzoni, Naoise Nunan Dissertation title (as for now 😀) Responses of microbial physiology to changes in land management: a bioenergetics approach Topic – in brief Testing whether changes in…
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#9 Catarina: Orchard manure fertilisation, vineyards and satellite images
How can manure replace mineral fertilisers in apple orchards and how can satellite images help improve vineyard fertilisation? Catarina is a PhD student at the University of Lisbon and part of the EU Horizon 2020 project Nutri2Cycle. Department and Section: Instituto Superior de Agronomia University supervisors: Henrique Ribeiro, David Fangueiro and Ricardo Braga Dissertation title (as for now :D) “Valorisation of organic materials and composts for precision fertilisation of orchards and vineyards” Topic – in brief Assessing the impacts of manure fertilisation on apple orchards – in terms of emissions and apple yields. Catarina compares the effects of mineral and manure fertilisation to provide farmers with recommendations on how they…
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#7 Nelly: Phosphorous fertilisation, plant-availability and use-efficiency
Nelly is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen. She conducts research on organic and mineral forms of phosphorus fertiliser. She explores its plant-availability and models its fate in the soil to optimise its application. Institute: Department of Geoscience and Natural Ressource Management – Geography Nelly did her PhD at the University of Copenhagen, then went to Australia to do a first postdoc and now returned to Denmark to do a second postdoc. Let’s start with her PhD research Dissertation title: (link) Potential for increasing phosphorus bioavailability of thermally treated sewage sludge using phosphate solubilising fungi Methodology In vitro lab-experiments with different combinations of ashes derived from wastewater sludge…
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#6 Joana: designing organic fertilisers by blending animal manures
How can mixing different animal manures together enhance their value and increase their ability to replace mineral fertilisers? Joana is a PhD student at the University of Lisbon and she is part of the EU project Nutri2Cycle. Department and Section: Instituto Superior de Agronomia University supervisor: David Fangueiro, Paula Alvarenga and Henrique Ribeiro Dissertation title: Blending of raw and treated manure to produce bio-based fertiliser Topic – in brief The challenge: manure is rather unpredictable in terms of its fertiliser value whereas farmers can be quite sure about effects and usefulness of mineral fertilisers the nutrient ratio in manures is suboptimal for plant growth: if one applies according to nitrogen,…
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#5 Clara: Biochars & ashes as bio-based fertilisers
How to enhance the plant availability of phosphorus of biowaste-derived biochars and ashes? Clara is a Marie-Curie PhD student at the University of Copenhagen and part of the EU project FertiCycle. She conducts research on biochars and ashes and on how to increase their fertiliser value. Department and Section: Department of Plant and Environmental Science, Soil Fertility Group 1st supervisor: Dorette Müller-Stöver 2nd supervisor: Lars Stoumann Jensen Dissertation title (as for now :D) Enhancement of plant phosphorus availability from biowaste biochars and ashes Topic – in brief Bio-based fertilisers : Enhancing the phosphorous availability from biochar and ashes What is biochar? Similar to coal production: Organic compounds are heated up…
