HORTIMED

Description of the consortium

No	NAME	ABBREVIATED NAME	COUNTRY
1.	Agricultural University of Athens	AUA	GREECE
2.	Agricultural Research Institute	ARI	CYPRUS
3.	Central lab. For agricultural Climate Agricultural Research Center	CLAC	EGYPT
4.	Centro de Investigación y Formación Agraria de Almería	CIFA	SPAIN
5.	Agricultural Research Organization, Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences	ARO-ISWES	ISRAEL
6.	Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering	IMAG	NETHERLANDS
7.	University of Pisa	UNIPI	ITALY
8.	Al-Azhar University- Gaza. PA	AAUG	PALESTINE

All partners are located in areas (both in the EU and MPCs) where the economical advantages as well as the environmental impact of intensive horticultural development are increasingly obvious. Besides this common first-hand experience, they have diverse backgrounds in the various disciplines (plant physiology; micrometeorology; ecology; agricultural engineering; information technology; management information systems; extension and training) that are needed to ensure success of such a project. Indeed, all partners will contribute significantly to nearly all sections of the project. Work package managers and task leaders have been selected on the basis of their qualifications and of their teams.

To achieve the objectives set out in this proposal, major work tasks have been identified, responsibilities delegated to specific partner groups, selected on their known experience to carry out the agreed research. To reach each specific work task goal on time, major milestones have been set, and an effective project management system agreed with specific roles of each partner and the overseeing role of the co-ordinator agreed.

AUA (Greece) has a well-instrumented laboratory to deliver Information Systems for commercial exploitation. It has conducted similar development and delivered a complete SCADA system for the on-line management of greenhouses, which is now being commercialised. The role in this proposal is to deliver a Decision Support System and an on-line control algorithm to implement the findings of this research. Therefore, this partner is mostly suitable for delivering another system for research dissemination. AUA has successfully coordinated a previous EU project (FAIR3-CT93-1603), which was driven all the way to a demonstration phase and finally to application and commercialisation. Once more, AUA is suitable to coordinate a similar project (same area - different focus).

ARO-ISWES (Israel) conducts currently research on ventilation and evaporative cooling of greenhouse crops.  It has access to a large climate controlled greenhouse with facilities to measure climate variables and control water application.  This facility is available for the proposed project.

CIFA (Spain) has currently activities on plastic-house climate management (ventilation, heating, CO₂ injection ....), irrigation management based on dynamic strategies to satisfy on-time demand, open and closed substrate systems, studies on the suitability of wastewater after tertiary treatment for re-utilization on irrigation,and horticultural training. CIFA will subcontract part of the research work to IRTA, Centre de Cabrils, 08348 Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain, being Dr. Juan I. Montero the scientist responsible for the execution of the tasks. IRTA will concentrate on the technological and physical aspects of tasks 2.2 (climate management, movable shading development, modelling of natural ventilation and control of humidity). IRTA will also contribute to tasks 3.1.4 (modelling of grower’s water management) and 3.2.4 (training program based on the project outcome). By co-operating CIFA and IRTA, the expertise on agronomy and physiology given by CIFA will benefit from the technological and engineering expertise from IRTA, and vice-versa. Besides, results from the project will be extended to Northern Mediterranean areas like Cataluña, through the dissemination activities done by IRTA.

ARI (Cyprus) has an extensive experimental record on plant nutrition and being in the centre of the problem is well informed for adapting plant nutrition against water salinity for a sustainable horticultural production.

UNIPI-(Italy) has experience on salt-resistant species (spinach, celery, etc.) and will be working on the reuse, through bio-filtration, of salt-enriched nutrient solution from closed-loop hydroponics. Experiments will be performed with tomato and cucumber plants grown with NFT and using the waste nutrient solutions from these crops to cultivate celery and spinach plants.

Two more partners, CLAC (Egypt) and AUG (Palestine) are in the center of the problem, they are working hard against water salinity and scarcity, and will bring the social culture of their countries and also disseminate new results to the growers of those reagions.

IMAG (Netherlands) The presence of a Dutch partner ensures that the considerable experience of that country with closed growing systems is taken into account when developing water saving measures that are suited to the needs of the Mediterranean protected horticulture.

A map of the required expertise to carry out the proposed research and how it is well covered by the different partners is shown below.