Project > Macqu > General Results

 Activities towards end-users

a.       Many oral and poster presentations made by the Coordinator around the world (Europe, Japan, China etc) made the MACQU project and its products well known.

b.       Manuals drafted during the project are planned to be revised and advanced to multimedia user-tutorial, which will greatly enhance the competitiveness of Macqu developed systems.

c.       The Coordinator organized an International workshop (17-19/6/98) on Control Applications in Agriculture dedicated to Macqu.

d.       A local workshop & Show was organized by the Coordinator (20-20-98) with a mixed audience (extension officers and growers) and spread the awareness for pollution and the potential of solution using closed loop irrigation systems.

Support to Community Policies

a.       Research contributions to environmental issues regarding:

¨       minimization of greenhouse effluents by advancing specific ion monitoring and control of closed hydroponic systems.

¨       minimization of greenhouse effluents by drain monitoring and control of open fertigation systems.

¨       humidity management for disease control and minimization of chemicals’ use.

b.       Research contributions to sustainability issues regarding:

¨       Energy saving with localized heating methods and temperature-integral control.

¨       Water usability issues of high salinity water and water use efficiency with regards to quality of produce and humidity/transpiration control.

c.       The above environmental and sustainability issues will be effectively disseminated to the scientific community and to growers with a demonstration project currently deployed, with the support of DGVI. The developed MACQU system provides the tools for the implementation and exploitation of the research results.

d.       Legislation, regarding the adoption of closed hydroponic systems to solve problems with the restriction of chemicals (i.e Bromium Cloride and others), is now advancing also in South Europe. MACQU environmental saving results and MACQU control system can contribute to ease the application of environmental measures especially in South Europe and around the Mediterranean.

Market issues

a.       During the execution of the project 2 private companies, 4 research Institutes and 2 Universities were involved and with a follow-up project 5 demonstration sites are taking part for the dissemination of research and technological results. Several National projects were generated for the exploitation of the results. There is a threat for European growers (especially on flowers) from competition from Africa and Latin America products at low prices. MACQU is taking active part in South Europe competitiveness, supporting growers to adopt hydroponics for increased quality and decreased cost. Further the MACQU system is developing demonstration sites in USA with great potential for American market penetration.

b.       One Patent application has been filed (990100428) for MACQU hydroponics machine and Program copyright and MACQU trade name protection are in progress (MACQU is becoming a trade name in itself).

c.       MACQU has generated two prototypes “MACQU-Climate and MACQU-Hydroponics” and spin-offs for fisheries “MACQU-F” and Irrigation systems “MACQU-Ir”. Partners developed several software codes for the research tasks. The MACQU-Application-Program software code is a major output of the project, has several significant features, it is well maintained and advanced, marketing is underway, and is expected to become the success story of MACQU (run included demo CD).