Quality of plant products grown with manure fertilization
Raupp, J. Proc. 4th Meeting Concerted Action Fertilization Systems in Organic Farming (AIR3-CT94-1940), Juva/Finland, 6-9 July, 1996
Preface
Compared to the negative effects of agricultural practises on food quality, e.g. by veterinary pharmaceuticals, plant protection agents and related substances, the positive influences are less frequently under consideration. The question is, which agricultural practises can improve food quality in addition to the effects of the genetic capacity of modern varieties. In the present situation of a market oversupply with many food products in Europe, the question of how to improve quality may be of increasing importance. This is basically true for all types of agriculture. In par-ticular, this is relevant to organic farming, to its conception of itself and to its marketing strategy.
There is no doubt that among all agricultural practises fertilization and plant protection play a central role for crop quality. After having evaluated fertilization effects on plant yield, soil life and symbiotic nitrogen fixation during three previous meetings, the task of our present meeting was to evaluate the quality of plant products as influenced by manure fertilization. We realized that this is impossible without assessing quality parameters and analytical methods. Hence, we not only discussed fertilization effects but also examined parameters and methods used in our long-term experiments.
The meeting was hosted by the Finish member of our group, Res. Prof. Dr. Artur Granstedt, at Partala Research Station. We are very grateful to Pirkko Roinila for her excellent organisation which was a main element of the informative and hospitable atmosphere of our meeting, beside the clear light of very long days in the Finish summer.
Joachim Raupp
Table of contents
1. Quality investigations with the K-trial, Järna, and other Scandinavian fertilization experiments (A. G. Granstedt and L. Kjellenberg)
2. Quality investigations with products of the long-term fertilization trial in Darmstadt (J. Raupp)
3. Quality investigations in the long-term DOC-trial (Th. Alföldi, P. Mäder, U. Niggli, E. Spiess, D. Dubois and J.-M. Besson )
4. Discussion: Fertilization effects on product quality and examination of parameters and methods for quality assessment (summarized by J. Raupp)