The protection of plants is an important contribution to fighting hunger and poverty in the world, preserving biodiversity, but also promoting economic development: this is the message with which the International Plant Health Day, proclaimed by the UN, is celebrated on 12 May.
At the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, this concern is pursued 365 days a year: at the Competence Centre for Plant Health, interdisciplinary research is conducted in close cooperation with South Tyrolean stakeholders to find solutions to challenges in South Tyrolean agriculture and forestry in this area.

Plants form an essential basis for human health, but also for the balance on our planet: our food and the oxygen we breathe alone depend on plants for 80% and 98% respectively. And yet climate change and other consequences of human and economic activities are threatening this important basis of our survival, it is recalled on International Plant Health Day. Plant pests and diseases alone, which are becoming increasingly widespread due to international travel and trade, cause the loss of up to 40% of all crops or their yields every year.

At the Competence Centre for Plant Health at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, an interdisciplinary team led by Prof. Tanja Mimmo from the Faculty of Science and Technology is helping to further understand the influence of so-called abiotic environmental factors (soil quality and chemical composition, water, light or temperature) and biotic environmental factors such as other living organisms and plants on plant health. "Especially against the background of climate change, we need an interdisciplinary approach and close cooperation between research and the various stakeholders in this field in order to find solutions to the ever-increasing challenges in agriculture and forestry," says the professor of agricultural chemistry with the working areas of soil chemistry and plant nutrition.

Other members of the competence centre are the entomologist Prof. Hannes Schuler, who conducts research primarily in the area of invasive pests and the transmission of plant diseases by insects, specialists in mechatronics, robotics and mechanical engineering such as Prof. Renato Vidoni and Prof. Guido Orzes, and the professor of agricultural mechanics Prof. Fabrizio Mazzetto. He is able to take precise measurements of pesticide drift via sensors in the Agroforestry Innovations Lab in the NOI Techpark. Electrical engineer Prof. Luisa Petti, on the other hand, with her know-how in the field of sensor technology and nanotechnology, brings the prerequisites for the development of new technologies to the competence centre - such as innovative components that are used in plants to indicate the need for water or nutrients, for example, and to measure stress factors. The projects at the Centre of Competence for Plant Health are just as broad as the competences: from the eDNA project, in which research is being carried out with Eurac Research within the framework of the Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol on how the application of copper affects the soils of cultivated orchards in South Tyrol, to the genetic analysis of bark beetles, which should help to better predict and thus also prevent the economically and ecologically problematic infestation with this pest.

A central concern of all projects is not only the close cooperation with other research institutions such as the Experimental Centre Laimburg, Eurac Research or Boku Vienna. There is also close exchange and cooperation with important players in the South Tyrolean apple industry such as the South Tyrolean Apple Consortium, VOG and VI.P, Bioland or the South Tyrolean Advisory Council. With the South Tyrolean Apple Consortium, a project is about to start in which research is being carried out into the effects of different sowings in apple cultivation on soil quality and, above all, on the storage of carbon in the soil. The current programme of the Competence Centre also includes a joint conference with the Experimental Centre Laimburg: the South Tyrolean Soil Symposium on 27 May 2022 from 8.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. will focus on the importance and management of humus in agricultural soils with a focus on South Tyrol.
Registration is still possible until 23.05.2022 at bit.ly/Südtiroler_Bodensymposium.

In the picture  the team of the Competence Centre for Plant Health
fLTR: Lorenza Colato, Fabrizio Mazzetto, Mauro Maver, Tanja Mimmo, Lorenzo Becce, Guido Orzes, Hannes Schuler, Luisa Petti and Renato Vidoni.