Fourth SUSFERT Consortium Meeting at BOKU IFA Tulln (Austria)

From November 26^th to 28^th 2019 the SUSFERT partners came together in Austria to update the consortium on the progress in their respective tasks and work packages during the fourth SUSFERT consortium meeting at the BOKU IFA Tulln (Lower Austria).

 

Progress within SUSFERT

The first day of the meeting was focussing on work package 1 (Probiotics and struvites) and work package 3 (Siderophore). The second day saw updates from work package 2 (Coating), work package 4 (Fertiliser optimisation), work package 5 (Field trials) as well as from work package 6 (Product sustainability).

Impressions from the SUSFERT consortium meeting in Tulln in Nov 2019 ((c) RTDS)

 

On the final day of the SUSFERT meeting work package 7 (Dissemination, exploitation and communication (DEC)) gave an overview of their advancements and plans for the next project period. Finally, the meeting was concluded with an update from work package 8 (Project management) and the general assembly.

 

Highlights of the meeting

Some of the major highlights of this latest SUSFERT meeting were especially:

1) A lot of testing results for the strains of probiotics are now available. This allows the consortium to narrow them down to the most promising for future fertiliser production.

2) Marc Spiller and colleagues from the University of Antwerp are finishing a publication on struvite. This is in the light of the upcoming EU fertiliser regulation (read the latest consolidated version) and was discussed intensely.

3) To be fully prepared for the future, the SUSFERT risk assessment was thoroughly reviewed and updated with the consortium once again. Comments of the reviewers of the latest review meeting at BBI JU were attended to accordingly.

4) A workshop on the projects’ newly established editorial calendar was held by the DEC leader: What content can the consortium provide to interested stakeholders now that more and more audience is found on SUSFERTs’ social media like Twitter and LinkedIn and website as well as the newsletter? More content will attract even more relevant stakeholders to keep them interested in SUSFERT for future impact of the project results.

 

Special treats awaited

Three very special treats awaited the SUSFERT colleagues during this meeting. Our local hosts at BOKU IFA Tulln, Renate Weiß, Georg Gübitz and their colleagues, showed us around the glasshouses including areas where SUSFERT plant experiments are currently conducted as well as the laboratories where our coating experiments are done. Another tour led us through another lab area to the fermenters.

 

Impressions from the tours taken at BOKU IFA Tulln in Nov 2019 ((c) RTDS)

 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to host BOKU IFA Tulln, especially Renate Weiß and all other BOKU colleagues for organizing this pleasant get-together!

With at peak times 26 colleagues attending and discussing SUSFERTs work progress it was definitely one of the largest SUSFERT meetings so far. Thanks to all for participating and making this event so successful – and a lot of fun on top! The general assembly decided that the next edition of SUSFERTs’ regular meetings will be held at the University of Antwerp that kindly offered to host us end of April 2020. End of the year another meeting will be held in the south of Austria by partner Sappi. Looking forward to both events!