The first Italian SUPER-G farm network co-innovation workshop took place on April 18th 2019 in Cascina Roseleto, Villastellone (TO), Italy. The workshop had a total of 9 participants, of which 7 were farmers, 1 agronomist and 1 seed producer.
The main objectives of this day were to:
- Present the SUPER-G project to farmers
- Each participant was also asked to report the strengths, weaknesses, and threats for each of their farms
The main local challenges for PG described were:
- PG (over)seeding
- Problems with polluted water
- Problems with weeds
- Lack of appropriate technical support
- Increasing problems due to climate change
- Low productivity
- Get land for pastures in the lowland
- Lack of demonstration farms
- Get information from French and Swiss farmers
The following innovations were discussed as possible solutions:
- Use of raising platemeter to determine PG productivity
- Creation of a Regional grassland catalogue
- Overseeding with site-specific seeds collected from local PG/hay to improve PG quality, productivity and resistance to diseases
- Web/mobile App to help to identify mixtures for overseeding
- Hay drying systems
- Setting grazable hedges with fodder tree and shrub species
- Differentiating the market of grass-fed animal productions by implementing ‘smart labels’ with agro-environmental indicators
- Use of NIR to estimate hay/milk/manure quality in terms of protein content
- GPS tracking to assess cow grazing intake and determine the amount of integration needed per each head
- Use of composted manure distribution to improve nutrient recycling and reduce weeds carried by non-mature manure
- Adoption of nutrient balance plans at the farms
