Authors: Jane Brandt, Giovanni Quaranta, Rosanna Salvia, Gottlieb Basch, Fernando Teixeira, Marie Wesselink, Julie Lemesle, Antonio Ferreira, Adelcia Viego, Jorge Mataix Solera, Fuensanta Garcia, Costas Kosmas, Orestis Kairis, Chrysa Aratzioglou, Matjaž Glavan, Zoltán Tóth, Olga Vizitiu, Irina Calciu, Jerzy Lipiec, Magdalena Frąc, Boguslaw Usowicz, Endla Reitam, Minggang Xu, Haimei Fu, Hongzhu Fan.
iSQAPERiS Editor: Jane Brandt
Source document: Brandt, J. et al. (2020) Demonstration of recommended agricultural management practices and SQAPP in the iSQAPER study sites. iSQAPER Project Deliverable 6.4 (additional) 71 pp

 

Contents table
1. Soil quality assessment and agricultural management practice evaluation  
2. SQAPP development, testing and evaluation  
3. Demonstration events

1. Soil quality assessment and agricultural management practice evaluation

Based on WOCAT database (»www.wocat.net), iSQAPER selected 18 promising agricultural management practices (AMPs) with potential to improve soil quality (»Agricultural management practices in the iSQAPER study sites). Examples of a number of these AMPs were identified in each of the 14 iSQAPER study sites that conformed to the following criteria:

  • the promising management practice has been implemented for at least 3 years;
  • at least 2 different soil types are represented; and
  • at least in 2 different first level Farming Systems (arable, permanent, grazing) are represented.

For each AMP plot, nearby control plots were also identified where the practice has not changed. A first field campaign was conducted in 2016 to evaluate the soil quality in each of the paired AMP-control plots, using visual soil assessment methods (»Visual soil and plant quality assessment). The results from this and all the other study sites were combined to determine which AMPs can be shown to have a proven positive effect on soil quality, see »Assessing effect of management practices on soil quality - experimental results.

Those practices that were innovative for the study site were also described and added to the WOCAT database.

The soil assessment campaign was repeated in 2018. The aim was to investigate

  • how measurements of soil quality parameters obtained from the visual assessments compared to those obtained from laboratory measurements;
  • if different AMPs affected different soil quality parameters in different ways;
  • and what impact the AMPs had on the principal soil threats.

For details of the assessment analysis methods and the results from this and all study sites see »Impact of promising agricultural management practices.

2. SQAPP development, testing and evaluation

Ninety stakeholders from the European study sites took part in the evaluation of the beta version of SQAPP. Participants were asked a series of questions relating to their expectations of SQAPP, the relevance of the soil parameters included in SQAPP, the assessment of soil threats and the suitability of the app's recommendations to their local context. The feedback and comments were combined with those from the other study sites and used in the further development of SQAPP. For details of the responses from all study sites see »Stakeholder feedback and SQAPP development.

3. Demonstration events

In late 2019 demonstrations events were organised in the all the iSQAPER study sites to present the major findings of iSQAPER to stakeholders, to demonstrate management practices of proven benefit to soil quality and to review again the information and recommendations provided by SQAPP.