isUP-AgrO European project – unlocking the potential for agricultural research on an EU outmost region: boosting ISOPlexis center

Abstract

The isUP-AgrO project aims to enhance the capability of ISOPlexis – Centre of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Technology, a research unit from the University of Madeira, an outermost region of Portugal. Networking, training and research activities will be implemented between the partners in the consortium, which includes the Università Degli Stdi Di Parma (UNIPR) in Italy, the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville (IRNAS – CSIC) in Spain, and the company SATURNTECH from Portugal. The objective of this project is to transform the ISOPlexis Centre into a reference research unit in the specific domains of agrodiversity and bioresources, with the goal of comprehending the functional agrodiversity of agrosystems and its role in the promotion of sustainable food production. The specific goals are: I) To complement a network to foster the activities and expertise exchange in life sciences, domains related to agriculture, and food, with the organization of training schools and staff exchange on specific research topics and with the participation of recognized specialists; II) To promote workshops and webinars aiming to accelerate knowledge transfer, prepare joint scientific publications and proposals writing, improving research management, and implement post networking and consortium able to compete at the international level; III) To implement a research project with the consortium partners, which aims to apply the competencies and skills, acquired during the isUP-AgrO realization. The vineyard will be the model crop used in the research project because it’s an important agricultural production, associated with the internationally recognized Madeira Wine brand, which suffers the pressure of ongoing climate and global changes. On the other hand, it generates by products and waste that can be valuable raw materials to develop new biological solutions and products for the local bioeconomy. In detail, an initial survey and characterization of the vineyards in the Madeira Region will be realized by targeting an important variety for Madeira Wine production, Verdelho. From this information, two vineyards will be chosen for the project. In these vineyards, traditional irrigation (farmer’s irrigation) will be compared with plots under precision irrigation to check the variations in the crop ecophysiology, phenology, productivity and soil microbiome during two crop cycles.