Projects
Lars Wiking , Nina Aagaard Poulsen , Margrethe Therkildsen , Peter Lund , Christian Friis Børsting , Nicolaj I. Nielsen & Martin Øvli Kristensen
The project will form the basis for reducing methane emissions from cattle by 1 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, corresponding to the government's agreement on the green transformation of Danish agriculture. The mean of action is the implementation of feed additives, feed materials and feeding strategies to reduce the methane emission from the cow.
Equipment will be installed to measure methane emissions from individual cows on several cattle farms. This will provide a unique trial setup to test and optimize the allocation of feed additives under practical conditions in order to achieve the greatest possible reduction in methane emissions, without affecting the cows' feed intake, milk yield, health or welfare. Furthermore, the project must ensure that the quality of the milk and meat is not impaired by the use of feed additives.
The project will provide a unique opportunity to bring the feed additives and feeding strategies closer to Danish farmers and companies and enable them to be the first worldwide to implement these strategies and additives in practice to reduce methane emissions
Description
01/01-2023 → 01/12-2025
Martin Jensen , Antonios Petridis , Majken Pagter , Maya Bojesen , Thomas Skovgaard , Jan Jager & Henning Jensen
Danish fruit and berry growers experience a significant loss of fruit production due to spring frosts that kill flower buds. Global warming induces earlier flowering and earlier loss of frost tolerance in buds, while the last day of spring frost has not become correspondingly earlier. This means an even greater risk of frost damage in Danish orchards in the future, which both threatens economic competitiveness and affects the environmental footprint.
The purpose of this project is to test and develop new and innovative solutions to protect flowers against spring frost with the aim of reducing frost damage and achieving higher and stable fruit yields and thus lowering the environmental footprint per fruit produced. Technologies being tested include testing new products that may biochemically or biophysically help protect flower buds from frost through delayed flowering or induced higher frost hardiness in buds. In addition, new fog systems that require much less water than traditional frost protection by irrigation will be tested. The possibility of utilizing varietal differences and rootstocks to reduce frost damage will be investigated. The importance of obtaining more precise information on microclimate will be investigated and results used to improve the prediction of damage risk and thus recommend the most economical and relevant tool for frost protection in orchards. Finally, measurements of physiological and biochemical changes in flower buds from the experiments will be used to develop more precise applied biological indicators of frost sensitivity to improve spring frost forecasting. Apples will be the main model, but pears and sweet cherries are also included
Financing: Projektet er støttet af: GUDP, Aarhus Universitet, Ålborg Universitet, Hortiadvice, Kærsbo frugtplantage og Egeby Frugtplantage.Description
01/08-2023 → 31/07-2027
