The project aims to drive European viticulture towards more efficient, sustainable, toxic-free crop protection, through reducing and even eliminating the use of xenobiotic compounds in plant protection products (PPPs)
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT
The mission of the Natural Agro project is to adopt agricultural production, particularly for vines, more respectful of the environment by developing an effective and sustainable strategy to fight against parasitic diseases.
The project aims to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers by proposing a new innovative solution to the current market.
OBJECTIVES
Three - tiered benefits of using natural PPP
formulations for GTDs and DM management
One of the main objectives
is to develop and evaluate two target specific formulations for DM and GTD, by using carbonated hydroxyapatite and natural oil blends with very low or no Copper.
The target is to achieve Cu reduced formulations with concentrations decreased from current levels of 3.5% to 0% (completely copper free).
These PPPs are completely biodegradable and allow recovery from treated biomass and their re-use, encouraging circular processes in the vineyards. Our concept is thus safe and sustainable by design, to reduce and phase out the usage of harmful copper-based fungicides in vineyards.