André Sradnick

• Dr. agr.
• PostDoc Position at Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops

The six approved Use Case applications from the 1st FAIRagro Use Case Call 2024, including working plans, running times, connections to the FAIRagro Task Areas, measures and deliverables as extension to the FAIRagro Proposal. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8366884

Peat is the most common used substrate in horticultural seedling production. To reduce peat in horticultural potted plant cultivation systems in general is an obstacle, even within the highly specialized horticultural industry. Next to soil-less cultivation systems as e.g. hydroponics, the horticultural industry is eagerly looking for suitable peat...

Market gardening is a widespread practice of bio-intensive vegetable production characterized by direct marketing, small-scale farming structures, high crop densities, and innovative cultivation approaches. Currently, deep compost mulch (DCM) is a popular trend among related growing techniques. The combination of no-till and a permanent mulch of co...

The need to substitute peat in growing media has become an urgent issue. Approximately one-third of European horticultural peat consumption occurs in vegetable production, where seedlings are cultivated in press pots. More research is needed to detect suitable, high-quality peat substitutes that provide the needed nutrient content, malleability and...

The prediction of nitrogen (N) mineralization or immobilization in organic fertilizers is an important tool to optimize fertilizer use, especially in intensive agricultural systems. Our aim was to derive a model to predict the N mineralization/immobilization from readily available information on the properties of organic fertilizers in farming prac...

Die Genauigkeit der Nmin-Analyse hängt wesentlich von der Anzahl der Einstiche zur Herstellung der Mischprobe ab. Empfohlen werden bei einer Flächengröße von einem Hektar 16 Einstiche, allerdings wird hierbei von einer Bodenprobenahme vor Kulturbeginn im zeitigen Frühjahr ausgegangen. Im Rahmen der novellierten Düngeverordnung (DüV) ist auch eine...

Precise estimates of evapotranspiration and other scalar fluxes of asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) crops are required for irrigation control, regional water budget projections or climate impact modelling studies. In Germany, asparagus fields are frequently quite extensive and enable the application of eddy covariance (EC) technique to measure the...

N-Expert ist eine vom IGZ entwickelte Softwareanwendung, die den Düngebedarf für Gemüsekulturen im Freiland schätzt. So können Landwirte und Düngeberater bei der Abschätzung der zu applizierenden Düngemenge unterstützt werden und die Düngung optimieren. Ziel ist es, Stickstoffeinträge in die Umwelt zu verringern. Vor dem Hintergrund der neuen Dünge...

Long-term application effects of cattle farmyard manure (CM) without and with biodynamic preparations (CMBD) on basal respiration, 0.5 M K2SO4 extractable C and the relationships of microbial biomass C (MBC) estimates by chloroform fumigation extraction (CFE) and substrate-induced respiration (SIR) were evaluated down to 1 m depth. The contents of...

Cattle farmyard manure application is an important tool for maintaining soil fertility in organic agriculture, especially in biodynamic systems. The first objective was to investigate whether application of biodynamic preparations (CMBD treatment) causes positive effects additional to those of composted cattle farmyard manure fertilization (CM trea...

Several field grown vegetables are known to have a short vegetation period coupled with a high nitrogen demand. The proposed amendment of the German fertilization ordinance provides several changes. Thus in future organic vegetable farmers have to adapt their fertilization to reduce nitrogen surplus but still produce vegetables with good quality. T...

The decomposition of vegetable crop residues, e.g. from Brassica species, can cause substantial nitrous oxide (N2O) and ammonia (NH3) emissions due to their high nutrient and water contents. One promising approach to reduce these harmful emissions is optimizing post-harvest crop residue management. So far published results on the effects of differe...

Amino sugars are the most important markers for microbial residues in soils and useful to investigate medium- to long-term effects of land-use changes on the soil microbial community. The residues of fungi and bacteria, the two largest functional microbial subgroups in soil, can be specifically quantified by analyzing glucosamine (GlcN) and muramic...

Background and aims Species rich, semi-natural grassland systems provide several ecosystem functions. The goal was to assess how aboveground composition and evenness affects soil substrate utilization pattern and soil microbial functional evenness. Methods At five German NATURA 2000 grassland sites, the interactions of plant functional groups (gram...

In many arid and semi-arid regions, irrigated vegetable production leads to major carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) losses owing to high turnover rates. The goal of this experiment was therefore to test two amendments, activated charcoal and quebracho tannins, in their ability to stabilize soil organic carbon (SOC) from goat manure application in order t...

The relationship between microbial biomass, residues and their contribution to microbial turnover is important to understand ecosystem C storage. The effects of permanent grassland (100 % ryegrass-PG), conversion to modified grassland (mixture of grass and clover-MG) or maize monoculture (MM) on the dynamics of soil organic C (SOC), microbial bioma...

The effects of cattle without and with biodynamic preparations on functional diversity of the soil microbial community were investigated in comparison with mineral fertilization (+ straw incorporation) at low and high application rates to a sandy soil of the long-term fertilization trial in Darmstadt, Germany. The multi-SIR method was used for inve...

Effects of goat manure application combined with charcoal and tannins, added as feed additives or mixed directly, on microbial biomass, microbial residues and soil organic matter were tested in a 2-year field trial on a sandy soil under Omani irrigated subtropical conditions. Soil microbial biomass C revealed the fastest response to manure applicat...