Project’s actions

The project was divided in four main actions:

1) Preparatory action – itself fractioned in the following components:

a) reailisation of a territorial area-survey in order to recognise the situation both from the environmental and the economical-productive point of view (by DISTA – Dep. of Agro-environmental Science and Technology of Bologna University);

b) localisation of the structures designed to host the demonstration model (by DISTA);

c) definition of the functional parameters for the model (by DISTA);

d) organisation of the demonstration model thanks to the creation of two greenhouse trials to be compared: 1) the sustainable greenhouse; 2) the traditional greenhouse (by ARSIAL and DISTA).

2) Management of the sustainable greenhouse model, thanks to the creation of demonstration trials in order to point out and to disseminate the environmental and economical benefits of the sustainable greenhouse model as proposed. The trials were carried out utilising the same crops and farming cycles adopted in the project’s area. Particular technologies were utilised in comparison to the traditional greenhouse farming in order to give evidence for: energy, water and fertilisers save; lower environmental impact; better yield; lower costs of production. The organisation of the demonstration trials (by DISTA) was connected to periodic soil analyses, crop development analyses, crop production analyses (by ARSIAL).

3) Global balance, thanks to analysis of the data collected through the analytical and instrumental surveys of the previous action, in order to elaborate global balances of the input and output fluxes of energy, gasses, chemicals, water, production and economic components of both the farming models in the demonstration theses: the sustainable and the traditional one (by DISTA).

4) Continuous information, dissemination, training - consisting moreover of:

a) organisation of guided visits to the sustainable greenhouse demonstration model for students of high schools (by ARSIAL thanks to the external services of Consorzio di Bonifica);

b) organisation of training courses for experts and technicians in order to promote innovative technologies and new practices in greenhouse and farming crop management (by ARSIAL);

c) organisation of a final international conference closing the project (by ARSIAL).