Syntropic permaculture in temperate regions: Spatial and temporal diversification of crop communities
- Beschreibung
The permantent cultivation of crops is considered a sustainable farming approach drawing on principles and cycles of natural ecosystems. The development of flora and fauna leads to diverse and complex communities, food webs and temporal equilibria based on local geographical, geological and climatic conditions.
Natural succession describes the development of locally adaped ecosystems that get more and more productive over (long) time, e.g. from a rock, over lichen and moss to grass, shrubs and finally dense forests. Simply spoken - carbon accumulates over time in form of biomass and subsequently humus, nurtured by minerals and precipitation, creating fertility.
Syntropic farming, developed in Brazil, draws on natural succession and has derived a set of principles, going beyond those of permaculture, to manage and thus utilise natural ecosystem processes and cycles for the permanent cultivation of diverse annual and perennial crops.
The Humboldt reloaded project aims at the identification of crops and the assessment of their growth characteristics and (ecosystem-) functions for the adaptation of the (sub-)tropcial approach of syntropic farming to our temperate regions.
- Projektzeitraum
- Wintersemester 2019/2020 und Sommersemester 2020
- Bewerbungszeitraum
- 14. bis 27.10.2019
- Durchführung
- semesterbegleitend
- Details zu Projektzeitraum und Durchführung
In this project a locally adapted syntropic permaculture system will be conceptualised based on the utilisation options and ecosystem functions of crops over time.
The participants will first identify crop characistics based on a systematic literature review in order to design a syntropic cultivation system.
Subsequently, the most promising crop community will be cultivated according to syntropic principles to asses germination, growth and yield parameters.
- Studienfach
-
Agrarbiologie
Agrarwissenschaften
Biologie
Nachwachsende Rohstoffe und Bioenergie - Betreuende
- Dr. Bastian Winkler, Dr. Moritz von Cossel
- Institut
- Institut für Kulturpflanzenwissenschaften (340) (Nachwachsende Rohstoffe und Bioenergiepflanzen (340b))
- Sprache
- deutsch/englisch
- Teilnehmendenanzahl
- min. 1, max. 5
- Arbeitsaufwand
-
ca. 90 Stunden pro Teilnehmende:r
| 3
ECTS-Punkte
Arbeitsaufwand (Stunden und ggf. ECTS) sind ungefähre Angaben. Die tatsächlich vergebenen ECTS-Punkte ergeben sich aus der tatsächlich geleisteten Arbeit.
- Für dieses Projekt ist kein Motivationsschreiben des Studierenden erforderlich
- Projektart
- experimentell
- Lernziele
-
Die Teilnehmende lernen in diesem Projekt:
- plan and conduct a systematic literature review;
- structure, assess and summarise relevant information;
- design an innovative farming system;
- plan, conduct and evaluate a small experiment
- summarize and discuss results
- think outside the box
- Anmerkungen für Studierende
This project supports the development of a research proposal.
- Schlagworte
- Permaculture, biodiversity, ecosystem functions, syntropy