15.07.2021

The OLGA project meeting on 14th of July 2021 took place on Thomas Domin's farm in Peickwitz near Senftenberg. In the morning, we visited the agroforestry areas and talked about the diverse ecosystem services that an agroforestry system can provide when appropriately designed. The rows of fast-growing woody plants here in Peickwitz were planted primarily because of the locally prevailing wind erosion. Poplar, willow & co. are lined up in alternation with cereals such as teff or rye. They protect the soil from erosion, bind carbon and can serve for the production of wood biomass and fruits (e.g. rock pear or chestnut). There was also a lot of talk about new marketing strategies that take more account of the land use concept of agroforestry and communicate it to society, such as through "agroforestry eggs", etc.

Likewise, the measuring installations on the OLGA agroforestry trial area along the Peickwitzer Mühlgraben were inspected and the first results of the temperature, precipitation and water flow measurements were looked at. At the end of the measurement series in 2023, they should provide information on the extent to which the woody plants contribute to the protection of the watercourse, e.g. in the form of shading and pollutant input reduction.

In the afternoon, the OLGA partners discussed the current status of the research work in the project. In addition to the first measurement results from the two trial areas, the results of the agricultural woodland potential analysis on watercourses for the Dresden region were evaluated. These will subsequently be further refined and, if necessary, extended to agricultural areas. Furthermore, the Citizen Science survey "How regional is your shopping?", which runs until 30.09.2021, and other participative events and measures in summer and autumn 2021 were introduced.