On 25 June 2020, NARDI Fundulea (the Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare Agricola, Romania) organized the traditional ‘Field day of wheat and barley’, together with LAPAR, the biggest farmers Association in Romania.
In this occasion, participant stakeholders – farmers, policy makers, researchers and mass-media – visited (respecting the necessary COVID restrictions) the screening field trials of wheat and barley genotypes that NARDI is leading in the framework of the LIVESEED project to develop new testing and organisational models for high quality seeds for the organic sector (Subtask T2.1.1) and the field experiments focusing on grasslegume mixtures (alfalfa and red clover x Lolium, Dactylis, Festuca and Trifollium alexandrinum) that target the development of new breeding methods and co-design approaches for optimised perennial crop mixtures (subtask T3.2.2).
Participants had the chance to observe the heterogeneous materials: dynamic populations and CCPS, some old genotypes from wheat collection and, as a generalized phenomenon, the very low number of ears, respective, plants/m2, due to extreme dry spring and other – still unknown – limiting factors of the soil.