- Developing and designing sound cropping systems for traditional, neglected and medicinal crops through adaptations and improvements in crop management in terms of sowing, fertilization, disease management and measures to cope with various biotic and abiotic stress factors.
- Developing process-based mechanistic crop growth models to evaluate and improve cropping systems under various geoclimatic scenarios and to develop suitable adaptation strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change.
- Evaluating the quality of food and medicinal raw materials through advanced laboratory techniques (U-HPLC, GC-MS) and regulating them through modifications in the cropping system and post-harvest processing to achieve industry quality goals.
Modern cropping systems and techniques emphasize not only on maximizing yield but also on the quality of final products in terms of nutritional, phytochemical and sensory attributes. Moreover, in the light of current global challenges, the need for more sustainable and environmental friendly crop production systems like intercropping or mixed cropping systems is undeniable. Furthermore, the growing demand for novel plant food resources driven by the desire for healthier lifestyles and ethically sound food choices, and the concern for environmental consequences of animal food products, points to the necessity of the diversification of plant based food products and crops. On these accounts, the goal of our research activities is oriented on addressing such challenges in crop production systems using new crops and cultivars, state-of-art techniques, investigating different agricultural management systems (organic vs. conventional), and crop modelling approaches. Our research activities are diverse and can be categorized into the following groups:
- Development and designing new cropping systems while implementing new cultivars, improving and adapting agricultural management systems in terms of fertilization, disease management, adaptation to biotic and abiotic stress factors, etc.
- Investigating the resilience of non-native crops as well as development of suitable cropping systems for their production under the environmental conditions of central Europe.
- Development of process-based crop models for different crops and their application for designing suitable cropping systems for different environments.
