24th International Symposium of the Scientific Centre for Fertilizers ?Plant nutrition and fertilizer issues for specialty crops? will be held on September 6-8, 2016, in Coimbra, Portugal. The symposium is jointly organized by:
The 24th CIEC symposium is thematically dedicated to plant nutrition and fertilizer issues for specialty crops. Though Portugal is not big in size it is a country of extremes. In the north-western parts precipitation may be as high as 2,000 mm while it is as low as 400 mm in the south-east. Adaptation of crop plants to drought will play a key role with view to climate change.
Plant production in the Iberian Peninsula is characterized by the cultivation of specialty crops such as grapevine, cork oak, eucalyptus, olives, almonds and citrus fruits. In particular, forest fuels such as fast growing and drought-adapted eucalyptus offer the chance to utilize residual biomass and to reduce net costs of stand clearance. Environmental conditions, for example drought, salinity and micronutrient deficiency cause regularly stress conditions for plants. Fertilization with micronutrients alleviates acute and latent deficiencies and offers the possibility to naturally fortify plant products, for instance with Ca, Fe, Zn and I. All these growth factors impede the efforts of plants to acquire water and nutrients and the utilization efficiency of fertilizers. Variable rate technology including a site-specific nutrient management in Precision Agriculture has presumably the biggest potential for being profitable where specialty crops are grown. Thus contributions on research about stress alleviating plant nutrition and progressive technologies to improve fertilizer efficiency are highly welcome.
The conference will concentrate on three major topics of global interest though the presentation of innovative data in fertilizer research is appreciated explicitly.
These are:
In invited lectures Prof. Dr. Shiping Wang (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China), Prof. Dr. Jo?o Santos (University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal), Dr. Elke Bloem (Julius Kühn-Institut, Institute for Crop and Soil Science, Braunschweig, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Javier Tardáguila (University of La Rioja, Logro?o, Spain) present cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art facts on these themes.
The symposium brings scientists together from all over the world interested in the specifics of nurturing plants under stress conditions. Delegates will leave the symposium having shared ideas, having contributed to the body of knowledge concerning fertilizer use, and having made friends and contacts for future research.
For more information and registration visit www.lojas.ci.uc.pt/uc/product_info.php?products_id=689&language=en.