Seminar ‘Geophysics & Agriculture: the perfect match?’ on January 31st, 2020

Agrogeophysics is an emerging research field. What are the applications, potential and future research needs? Come and discover with us.

About this Event

The challenges in agriculture are enormous. We have to produce enough food while safe-guarding our environment for future generations. A better understanding of the nature of underlying processes and interactions in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum of our agro-ecosystems is crucial. Geophysical tools have the potential to characterize and quantify these processes non-invasively from plot to landscape scale. Nevertheless, a number of challenges remain for geophysical results to be fully exploited by decision-makers and other scientific communities. In this seminar, we will explore ongoing research in the field of agrogeophysics, discuss potential applications and highlight future research needs.

Register here.

Programme

Thursday 30/1/2020
19:30 Pre-conference dinner in Brussels (WOLF )

Friday 31/1/2020

8:15-9:00   Registration of participants & coffee
9:00-9:10   Welcome word
9:10-9:40 Mihai Cimpoiascu A quantitative link between undisturbed soil pore architecture and time-lapse electrical resistivity measurements of pore fluid content
9:40-10:10 Sathyan Rao Studying signatures of roots from non-invasive electrical measurements
10:10-10:40 Edmundo Placencia Spectral induced polarization signatures of soils enriched in century-old biochar: Implications for hydric behaviour characterization of agroecosystems
10:40-11:10   Coffee break
11:10-11:40 Guillaume Blanchy Geophysical monitoring for crop phenotyping
11:40-12:10 Benjamin Mary The GROWING project (Geophysical Root Observations for Water SavING): Background and objectives
12:10-12:40 Eve Daly The role of geophysics in sustainable agriculture and the protection of groundwater resources in Ireland
12:40-14:00   Lunch break + posters
14:00-14:30 Cosimo Brogi Geophysics-based soil mapping for improved modelling of spatial variability in crop growth and yield
14:30-15:00 Lidong Ren The use of EMI to assess soil compaction
15:00-16:00   Coffee break + discussion future collaborations
16:00-16:30 Christian Von Hebel Discovering field-specific management zones incorporating ground-based electromagnetic induction and drone-based crop data  
16:30-17:00 Sarah Garré Geophysics for agriculture? To the roots!
17:00-19:00   Closing drink and finger food

*Presentation format: 20 min + 10 min discussion

Poster presentations by David O’Leary, Russell Swift, Adriaan Vanderhasselt, Maximilian Weigand and Pieter Janssens.

Venue

Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech
Auditorium PhV, Building 48 on campus map
Avenue Maréchal Juin
5030 Gembloux
Belgium

Parking: 3 (or Parking senghor 7 also nearby)
Train station at 10 min. by foot

Accomodation

Nearby hotel: Hôtel les 3 Clés

Easy train connections from Namur (ca. 10min) or Brussels (ca. 30min) where options are available for accomodation.

Organizers

Sarah GARRE – Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech

with support from
 ENVITAM doctoral school
Soil Science Society of Belgium (SSSB) – Topical committee II. Soil physics and hydrology