Project > Hortimed > Tasks

Structure of the work plans

The proposed project is broken down into four logical components whose further subdivision into “tasks” is outlined in the table below ("Time flow" part).

The first work package (WP1) is a review of present situation, both resources and expected requirements, in the most important horticultural areas in the Med. The estimate of the expected requirements will be coupled to the development of realistic fertigation recipes for the major horticultural crops.

The second work package (WP2) will consider greenhouse management (climate and irrigation) strategies that make it possible to mitigate the negative effect of low-quality irrigation water, once this effect (yield response to salinity) is quantified for the most important crops.

Work package three (WP3) will give structure to existing information on water saving techniques and installations (such as rain-harvesting, use and upgrade of waste water; new irrigation techniques; new crops and crop combinations) and link their efficiency to climate and other regional factors. We will determine a strategy for the management at farm level of multiple-quality water-resources.

Work package four (WP4) will provide a tool for irrigation and fertigation management. An analysis of expected effects on yield quantity and quality will be translated into a decision support system (DSS) for growers. The Decision Support System will contain simulation modules of the relevant processes at farm level (WP2 and WP3). It will be able to perform a multi-objective optimisation, suggesting a ranking of strategies for the best allocation of restrictions to different farming structures with the aim of maximising rewards. The results of the previous work packages will be used for estimating economical costs of restrictions and feasibility of rewards. 

Adequacy of chosen Approach

WP1 develops the classical approach to deal with fresh water shortage by studying means to improve water use efficiency by adjusting application to need. The first step establishes water and nutrient demand as a function of production targets. The method of investigation to achieve this result is through chemical analysis of plants producing high yields under optimum nutrient supply. The next step involves development of management procedures to match water and nutrient delivery with the desired level of plant uptake. The purpose of this task stems from the long warm and sunny season in the Mediterranean region. As optimum growing conditions under intensive cropping imply a leaching fraction to evacuate residual solutes from the growing medium, a task dealing with environmental is an essential part of the project.

The second WP develops ways to handle the negative effects of saline water. As toxic and osmotic processes cause the stress due to saline irrigation, it considers the solute balance in the plant and in the root growth medium to find the causality of the leading to response functions.  This approach provides a scientific platform for the investigation of the climate management procedures and for the applications.

In contrast with the physiological, chemical and physical investigation inWP1 and WP2, WP3 engages direct with practical agronomic-engineering on-farm operations, which affect the exposure of plants to solutes.  It provides the means to implement rapidly current knowledge and to adjust growing methods to new findings.

While WP1 and WP2 develop bits and pieces of new information about ways to deal with low quality water, WP4 prepares the framework for integrating partial knowledge into applications. It will also maintain and improve the communication channel between newly acquired information and the growers.

Work packages

1. Time flow

1.     A project detailed definition report will provide exact expectations from software packages (model demo), and detailed design of experiments

2.     Deliver STATE OF THE ART (WP1) on situation assessment (a Mediterranean mapping depicting the problem and possible solutions) and a wealth of recipes, which shall be revised as “adaptive recipes”, that is ion compensation for non-pure water sources. These later “adaptive” recipes will be the merging of WP1 and WP2, at the end of the project.

3.     Final deliverables as described in part 1.

2. Time planning of milestones and deliverables