Will the prices of soft commodities be tagged along with the commodity market or is there more behind it? How do we assess the global storage situation and how does the changed climate influence production and price development?

Host: Guido Höner, chief editor top agrar

At the moment there is a strong focus on fertilisation. Because of the statutory provisions as well as the price development of the past months agricultural farms face enormous challenges with regard to fertilisation.

For several years, the focus has been on nutrient efficiency.
Can we manage to make better use of the nutrients in the soil and, thus, to become more fertiliser-efficient? Which basics are discussed by scientists?

Rape cultivation plays a central role in the rotation of many farms. For economic reasons rape was more and more cultivated in tighter rotations in some regions of Central Europe. Beside a rotation that has been too tight for many years the disappearance of different crop care components makes things even worse for a successful rape cultivation.

The rapid agricultural development in Russia requires new cultivation and farming strategies. Vasily N. Mishantshuk, owner of EKO-AGROFERMA, shows the optimisation strategies of his farm based on changed cultivation strategies and rotation. The farm is located in Central Russia, south of Moscow.

Another innovative Russian farm presents itself: Sergey G. Korolkov, President of the agricultural production cooperative SCHPK, talks about the optimisation of the work results, the increase of efficiency and operational reliability due to state-of-the-art technology. This farm, too, is located south of Moscow in Central Russia.

At the moment, plant protection is marked and shaped considerably by legal framework conditions. In his speech, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Bauer explains which technical and agronomic approaches can be taken to get closer to the reduction targets set by the politicians.

Michael Horsch about #futureground

Rape cultivation more and more drifts east. How is rape produced under these framework conditions?

To what extent do cameras with their recognition algorithms support integrated crop care?

The intensity in the individual agricultural farms is considerably marked by their structure and the environment. How do the farms differ with regard to their cost structure and their labour intensity in Germany and in selected European countries?

The breeding objectives are a very long-term process and require a lot of foresight to meet the future conditions. Wheat breeding, too, has to prepare for the following, currently foreseeable developments/problem areas and adapt their breeding objectives for 2030 accordingly:

• Reduction of plant protection agents
• Reduction of fertiliser use – lower protein content = lower quality?
• Increase of organic farming to 30% - separate organic breeding with special breeding objectives
• Drier and warmer vegetation periods because of climate change – heat and drought stress

In many cases, wheat breeding provides potential solutions (breeding for resistance, better protein quality, organic quality, varieties that are more resistant to heat and drought stress) for the developments/problem areas mentioned and already today has to prepare for it with the relevant breeding objectives it has to work on.

Roadshow – Innovation 4 Farmers

Autonomisation has found its way into livestock farming. Will we meet robots in our fields, too, in the near future?

A large number of different microorganisms lives in our soils. They considerably influence our crops and thus, the harvested crops, too.

Biological plant protection is well-established on the farm of Bruno Reinhofer. New effective preparations are examined and developed in the farm-owned laboratory. The reproduction of microorganisms, too, is carried out in-house on a larger scale. Due to this kind of crop care optimisation considerable savings are achieved.