Evaluating inputs for organic farming – a new system. Proposals of the ORGANIC INPUTS EVALUATION project

This volume contains proposals for criteria for evaluation of plant protection products, fertilisers and soil conditioners1 to be used in organic agriculture. These ideas were developed in the course of the European Union (EU) Concerted Action project ‘ORGANIC INPUTS EVALUATION’ (QLK5-CT-2002-02565). For more information on this project see the end of this volume or visit the project website www.organicinputs.org. The documents in this volume are proposals elaborated by the project consortium and external experts. They were discussed with a broader audience at a public conference held in Brussels on October 13, 2005, and have been amended accordingly. Our proposals also include a “criteria matrix”, which is in Microsoft Excel format, and therefore stands as a separate file. The criteria matrix is discussed in section 5, but we strongly recommend that you consult the original document. To illustrate the use of the matrix, we have further prepared two case studies, which are also separate Excel files. All of these files are contained on the CD, and can also be downloaded from the project website. Currently, Regulation 2092/91 is under revision. We hope that our ideas can be incorporated into the regulation during this revision! In addition, we strongly encourage national institutions to make use of our proposals at the national level

Evaluating inputs for organic farming - a new system

This CD contains criteria for the evaluation of plant protection products, fertilizers and soil conditioners to be used in organic agriculture. These ideas were developed in the course of the European Union Concerted Action project «ORGANIC INPUTS EVALUATION» (QLK5-CT-2002-02565). For more information visit the project website www.organicinputs.org. The editors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, under Key Action 5 of the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (QLK5-CT-2002-02565 «ORGANIC INPUTS EVALUATION») and co-funding by the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science (BBW 02.0113)

Bacterial Gut Symbionts Contribute to Seed Digestion in an Omnivorous Beetle

Obligate bacterial symbionts alter the diets of host animals in numerous ways, but the ecological roles of facultative bacterial residents that colonize insect guts remain unclear. Carabid beetles are a common group of beneficial insects appreciated for their ability to consume insect prey and seeds, but the contributions of microbes to diet diversification in this and similar groups of facultative granivores are largely unknown.Using 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and terminal restriction fragment (tRF) length polymorphism analyses of these genes, we examined the bacterial communities within the guts of facultatively granivorous, adult Harpalus pensylvanicus (Carabidae), fed one of five dietary treatments: 1) an untreated Field population, 2) Seeds with antibiotics (seeds were from Chenopodium album), 3) Seeds without antibiotics, 4) Prey with antibiotics (prey were Acheta domesticus eggs), and 5) Prey without antibiotics. The number of seeds and prey consumed by each beetle were recorded following treatment. Harpalus pensylvanicus possessed a fairly simple gut community of approximately 3-4 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTU) per beetle that were affiliated with the Gammaproteobacteria, Bacilli, Alphaproteobacteria, and Mollicutes. Bacterial communities of the host varied among the diet and antibiotic treatments. The field population and beetles fed seeds without antibiotics had the closest matching bacterial communities, and the communities in the beetles fed antibiotics were more closely related to each other than to those of the beetles that did not receive antibiotics. Antibiotics reduced and altered the bacterial communities found in the beetle guts. Moreover, beetles fed antibiotics ate fewer seeds, and those beetles that harbored the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis consumed more seeds on average than those lacking this symbiont.We conclude that the relationships between the bacterium E. faecalis and this factultative granivore's ability to consume seeds merit further investigation, and that facultative associations with symbiotic bacteria have important implications for the nutritional ecology of their hosts

Design of a Pilot SOFC System for the Combined Production of Hydrogen and Electricity under Refueling Station Requirements

The objective of the current work is to support the design of a pilot hydrogen and electricity producing plant that uses natural gas (or biomethane) as raw material, as a transition option towards a 100% renewable transportation system. The plant, with a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) as principal technology, is intended to be the main unit of an electric vehicle station. The refueling station has to work at different operation periods characterized by the hydrogen demand and the electricity needed for supply and self-consumption. The same set of heat exchangers has to satisfy the heating and cooling needs of the different operation periods. In order to optimize the operating variables of the pilot plant and to provide the best heat exchanger network, the applied methodology follows a systematic procedure for multi-objective, i.e. maximum plant efficiency and minimum number of heat exchanger matches, and multi-period optimization. The solving strategy combines process flow modeling in steady state, superstructure-based mathematical programming and the use of an evolutionary-based algorithm for optimization. The results show that the plant can reach a daily weighted efficiency exceeding 60%, up to 80% when considering heat utilization