Climate field day at Hof Tolle with NÖK and PFN Hesse

On 8 September, a field day on climate adaptations in agriculture was carried out at Hof Tolle in collaboration with the Organic Farming and Compost Network Hesse (Netzwerk Ökolandbau und Kompost Hessen NÖK) and the Farmers-led Research Network Hesse (Praxisforschungsnetzwerk Hessen PFN). The event kicked off with a presentation of the farm and the Erasmus+ project ‘Climate Farming’ by Nils Tolle. The project aims to develop advisory and training materials by the beginning of 2025 to make farms less vulnerable to the weather conditions and to make them more sustainable and resilient.

Ralf Gottschall presented the Organic Farming and Compost Network Hesse (Netzwerk Ökolandbau und Kompost Hessen). He explained the climate impact of compost, existing nutrient balances in organic farming and the resulting need to close nutrient cycles as regionally as possible by using compost, especially in organic farming.

After a brief introduction of the PFN Hesse by Esther Mieves, Michael Kumschier from the HGU presented the vegetable farming project group and demonstrated measurements with the hood infiltrometer, which is used in the ÖkoBoden4Resilienz trial to measure the influence of compost and manure on the infiltration performance of the soils. We then went out into the field to inspect the cultivation trials with the newcomer crops Sudan grass (with compost) and chickpea. The field day was concluded with a tour of the Fuldatal composting plant with Stephan Margraf, who explained and demonstrated the quality standards of organic composts.

Together we are meeting the challenges of climate change!

Further events will follow….