 Okay. Good morning, good evening, wherever you are. I would like to welcome you all to parallel session five of the 2021 Global Symposium on Soil Biodiversity. This is one of the four sessions of theme three, Soil Biodiversity Shaping the Future of Food Systems. They are taking place today and tomorrow. So it is a great honor to be here with all of you. My name is Edmundo Barrios and I will be moderating this two hours session. We have some housekeeping information. During the first hour, we will be listening to four presentations of 10 minutes each. I will kindly remind you the presenters to keep to 10 minutes so that we can have time for the Q&A session at the end of at the end. One minute nine of your intervention I'll let you know that there is one minute left. Indeed it is important to allow 20 minutes for questions and answers at the end. So there will be four consecutive presentations. And the second hour will follow the same format. Before starting, I will kindly ask all of you to check the Zoom chat as some rules and information on this session will be posted. For the Q&A session, please use the chat to post your questions and include at the beginning of each question the name of the presenter to whom your question is addressed to. I have a few questions to be answered live and the rest will be answered via chat. The host of the meeting is Julie Eta and she's here to help you for any technical issues. So please do not hesitate to write to her directly using the private message option of the chat box if needed. So for your delay, I would like to now to give the floor to Mr. Patrick Muzinguzi from Macarena University in Uganda, who will give his presentation entitled minimal herbicide based conservation tillage enhances soil microfauna abundance and distribution in Uganda. The floor is yours, Mr. Muzinguzi. Thank you. I hope everybody is seeing the screen. Not yet, but it's coming. Yeah. Good afternoon from Uganda, Kampala. This is Patrick Muzinguzi and I'm happy to join you on this. Can you put it in presentation mode in the full screen mode? Excellent. Perfect. Please go ahead. Yeah. I'm presenting on minimal herbicide based conservation tillage enhances soil microfauna abundance and distribution in Uganda. And this work is ongoing, but with my colleagues, Professor Tua and another colleague Aine Mukama from Kampala here at Macarena University. So by introduction, use of pesticides and other agrochemicals has extensively increased worldwide to control weeds and pesticides. And in Uganda, the use of glyphosate is increasingly becoming a common chemical in Uganda as a result of failure to use a lot of mechanized agriculture. And people looking at it as a cheap option to engage in terms of killing weeds and responding to farming, especially in our systems here. There is an assumption that this chemical is less toxic to nature and humans and that it has have less likelihood of persisting in environment as compared to other herbicides. However, it can have direct effects on soil biodiversity. So the problem I went into this study with my colleagues is glyphosate is widely used by many farmers in this country, and it could be having long term effects on soil microfauna and soil health. And the impact of using this herbicide in Uganda, especially in controlling weeds, has had very limited studies. So we still don't know how this with master or what we're calling glyphosate can actually impact on different macro and microorganisms. But this study we're looking at the impact of this chemical, which is widely spreading across the country in terms of usage on the, on the management on the soil by diversity. Since he's one of the tools that is one of the chemicals that is being used under conservation tillage to minimize the disturbance of the soil, but it has also impacts on soil health. So, basically, in this study, we're trying to look to assess the impact of herbicide based conservation tillage on soil microfauna variations in the soils of Uganda. And basically, that was our main focus so that we're able to see how this is affecting the conditions in the country. So this, as I've already mentioned, this study is ongoing. It was conducted in, in southwestern Uganda. That region near Renzori High Hills, Renzori Mountain. So it was going around that region. And we just looked at the fields that have been under the spraying of this chemical for a long time. But in this particular study, we looked at three fields. And in these fields, we had fields that had about 10 day. We collected samples from fields that have been an upside application for the last 10 days, but also looked at the fields that have been applied that that have been applied with this herbicide after about two months was about 60 days. But also we had fields which had not been applied with any herbicide at all. So we were able to sample some termites, earthworms, millipedes, and centipedes. And we use the quadrat approach of 65 by 65 measurements, which had us an inner quadrat of 25 by 25 centimeters. And we also circumvented soils up to a depth of 30 centimeters in the depth of 0 to 20, 20 to 0 to 10, 10 to 20 and 20 to 30. So we did an extraction, especially for the earthworm using the powdered reagents, which we know is a global approach of establishing the earthworm and counting. We also looked at the termites, the millipedes, and also we were able to sort them out manually on plastic trays. And we did an abundance check. We only stopped an abundance check to look at the number of organisms per square meter, and the biomass also was calculated in bounds per square meter. So we did a data analysis using the analysis of variances, which is known as a good statistical approach, a general start approach, and we separate the means using the fissures, least significant difference. So what we are finding out in our systems here is that from all the fields that we are able to sample, it is of course clear that if you leave the soil undisturbed with herbicides, without using herbicides, you tend to have a better soil health condition in terms of the soil microbiota composition in the soil. So you can see in this context we would not add anything. We really see positivity, there are not much effect in biodiversity. The microorganisms were well distributed, were in abundance, but when we compare this with where we had treated, where there was earlier application of this herbicide, we saw a decline. We saw a decline in the use of, in the abundance of these organisms, especially with earthworms, also we saw that with the millpeds, also with the termites. So this is already a reflection as well. We are applying the chemicals in our region, but since the data which is able to guide us on regulating on the optimal amounts of herbicide to use in our regions or optimal amounts to apply, I think we have been having limited evidence of data to guide us. And of course, our people continue using these chemicals widely in the country. In fact, there is increasing use of these chemicals in the country, suggesting that we need to have a lot of data to track, to guide the nation on increasing amounts of chemicals use. And these other graphs are just showing us the trends with the depth. Still the same trend was observed where we didn't have any disturbance, you can see good amounts of earthworm activity in the environment. But again, if you disturb it after two months, after two months, again we could see some bit of regeneration, but the one which was recently applied. What the upside had been recently applied, we saw a very significant decline in earthworm abundance in a per square meter of the land that we are assessing, the land use we are assessing. Similar patterns we observed with the millpeds. So again this is suggesting that well we are applying a lot of chemicals, but there are some implications and of course in developed countries, this is known that they use a lot of herbicides. But for developing countries, I think there has not been enough data to support this trend in terms of declining patterns of the biodiversity in terms of microorganisms, in terms of I mean the abundance. I know this work is still ongoing because we are supposed to look at even the details of the types of species we are working with, the types of organisms we are working with, and basically apply the Simpsons diversity index to further understand by diversity. But these were preliminary observations. So what we are finding out is the herbicide use in tropical soils in terms of finalizing this study, the herbicide use in tropical soils for weeding and conservation tillage is a practice that is significant at disrupting the patterns of the soil biodiversity. And there was also a clear effect of herbicide use on earthworm millpeds abundance, which is a key indicator of agrochemical impacts on the soils. We think that we need to do a lot of studies in this region to study the biological components in the soil over time, as a result of continuous use of glyphosate herbicide, which we know is one of the broad spectrum systemic herbicide. And of course, which is an organic for us. Do you have one component, which is actually playing a critical role in supporting most of our resource constrained farmers they use it, because it's very expensive to hire tractor to dig the land so they normally apply this glyphosate glyphosate to ensure that they do the farming on time but also minimize on the cost of mechanization. The long term effects of chemicals on the soil, micro fauna can help long term studies of those chemicals on soil, micro fauna can help understand sustainability of soil biodiversity. I thank you, I thank the university for supporting this work, the laboratory that helped us to do the counting and which is the work which is ongoing I thank them for helping us to do the work with the lab and the global symposium on soil biodiversity team for inviting us. Thank you very much for an interesting presentation highlighting the impact of herbicide based conservation tillage practices on different soil micro fauna and the use of one of classical standard methodologies the TSBF monolith method, which is great to see it in action. With this, thank you. And now I would like to invite to the floor, Miss Mary Bartz from University of Coimbra in Portugal, who will give her presentation entitled perceptions on soil micro fauna in the agricultural field. The floor is yours Mary, you need to unmute yourself. Sorry, can you hear me now? Yes, yes, perfectly. Thank you, Mr. Edimundo. Can you see the presentation? Yeah, now you need to put it in full screen. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, please go ahead. So, now I'm Mary Bartz from the University Coimbra University, and I will present you this, our work and perceptions on soil micro fauna in the agricultural field. And as to begin, it's unquestionable the importance, the role that soil biodiversity plays in our ecosystems. We have around 25% for our global biodiversity in the soil. So it's really an amazing universe under our feet that we need to be discovered, valued and improved for our sustainability in our agro ecosystems. But one of the treats on soil biodiversity is the agricultural intensification. This intensification like the conventional planting leads to problems like soil erosion, soil compaction, soil pollution, the loss of soil organic matter and nutrients, and all these things are being harmful for the soil micro fauna. It's disrupting completely their home, that's the soil. But in other hands, the adoption of more conservative systems or ways like the no-tillage systems we can preserve and improve the environment to the soil micro fauna enhancing their functions in the systems. So in this way, seeing the importance of the soil micro fauna and they are quite seeing the importance of the soil micro fauna, we wanted to evaluate the social perception on these organisms among the farmers and other stakeholders working in the agriculture contest mainly in Brazil. So we prepared a questionnaire with 12 questions. These questions we asked about the profile for the interviews, the soil organism, the soil management, and we applied in two events, two editions from the National No-Tillage Meeting in 2008 and 2008. So we have a 10 years time apart of these post applications. From the region of origin from the interviews, we had 100% from the interviews from South America. In 2008, 87 answers from 600 participants, a small amount of people from Paraguay and 90% from Brazil. In 2008, from 570 participants, 81 answered this questionnaire, and 100% of them, they were from Brazil. So the region was quite determinant for some of these answers. So the meeting from 2008 was held in South Brazil in Paraná State. So in this way we have 55% of the interviews were from this state from Paraná in South Brazil. In 2008, the meeting was held in Mato Grosso, and so in this way we had 76% of the interviews from this state. From the interviews, the profession from them, the outstanding is the 30 more than 30% from them are farmers. In 2008, another percentage was from technical assistance, and the other was the third amount of percentage in the interviews related mostly to the students. So the farm or the land that was management from the professionals or the farmers or the extensionist working was quite different among the years to do the difference between the regions. But in 2008, 13% had less than 20 hectares, 28% from 101 to 500 hectares, and 36% more than 2001 hectares. And in 2018 was quite a different condition with more than 61% of the interviews had more than 2000 hectares. Then one part of our question was to try to see what the interviews think about organism considered to be pests, the control of these organisms and the management practices used by these interviews. And so in this way, we put in the question, we put nine groups of the soil microfauna, the most known groups that usually the farmers and the professionals and now that they are used to see in the field. And when we ask about which of them are considered pests, now six of them where the most had the most percentage with more than 30% of the response, and the other three had less than 10% considerate as a pest soil. And then some difference among the years that beetles and termites at the reduction and also and millipedes had a reduction from 2008 to 2009 18 to the response. And so we ask if they observed an increase of the pests in the fields and yes, there is really a huge percentage in both years in 2008, 61% of the interviews observed increase of pests in 2008 is 73%. And the reasons for this pest increase they related it to the excessive use of pesticides and the monoculture and seeing that in 2018 was more expressive this was higher a percentage in this year. And when then what kind of management they use to dispass control so the fellow the use of chemicals now the pesticides and the mechanical practices are the most used to the interviews and seeing that in 2018 was a reduction in the fellow and more in the health. And of course it's related also in the condition from the region, but also there was a decrease and here an increase in 2018 and the use of chemical and mechanical practices. In other hand, comparing the years there were some options more less harmful alternative like alternative methods integrated pest management and biological methods. I really have increased in 2018 showing that during these 10 years was the farmers and other stakeholders are using some other options less harmful in this environment. So we put this that the same organisms that they should ask us which of them they consider as beneficial in the agro system in the agro ecosystems, the good practices and about soil health. So the same question that was put as fast we also put as the organism as beneficial. So of course then outstanding the earthworms were the most with the higher percentage. The spider than also, but also they, they were six other groups Beatles termites and millipedes and city beats that has a percentage around from 10 to 25% of the response. Looking to the years, the spiders and city beats and Beatles had a reduction in the percentage, considering them, them as beneficial. And then the question regarding the management that favor the cyber diversity. The first thing was the green menu the corporation the no till it system and keeping native forest fragments, where the four with higher percentage on the answers. But the bad thing was that in 2008 the percentage regarding this this good practices was reduced. That's kind of contrasting in what we see what they responded some questions, and in other questions in the interview. In other hand, the integrated past management had increased in 2018 showing that that's the use of this kind of management is useful to enhance the biodiversity and the agricultural systems. And the other question that how they could assess the soil house. The three options now many organisms many airsomes and soil aggregation has had the most the higher percentage. The interesting is here now looking that these days they answered many organisms but when we look to the other questions, most of them are considering as airsomes of course is it's it's a universal bioeducated and so aggregation that the structure of soil is quite interesting view for the other farmers and extension is to to use as soil health. And the worms and soil aggregation had a reduction when they related it to the soil house in 2018. So, as conclusions of this works, most of the soil macrofauna that are not perceived as beneficial. There was an increase in the past incidents and as the interviews observe, there is a decreasing trend in the application of the good practices after 10 years, that's quite worsen. So, to me to look at that. And then really needs to foster the capacity of building and simulation of the evidence regarding the importance and function of soil biodiversity and society as we see in the in the response that is some kind of confusion and overlapping in what they think that's good or is bad for our environment. I would also like to thank the organization the symposium for this invitation, and thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Marie, and thank you for your presentation highlighting the variation in perceptions on soil macrofauna of people linked to no till farming workshops conducted in Brazil in a 10 year period. I think it was very interesting to see the change and also to reflect on the importance of the context where these workshops took place because they are very particular different in the Mato Grosso region and then in the, in the south region, the, I think it is quite contrasting. That's behind some of the results found, but we'll see in the discussion. Thank you very much and I would now like to, to give the floor to Miss Julia Plunger from Institute for alpine environment in Italy, who will give her presentation entitled biodiversity in Hey Meadows effects of intensive agriculture on a PJ macro invertebrates. The floor is yours. Yeah, I tried to share my screen. Yes, please. Can you see it. Yes. Now, I could full screen. Yeah. Perfect. There you go. Hello, my name is Julia Plunger. I'm working at the Institute for alpine environment at URAC research in Bolsano in Italy. And today I would like to present the main results of my masterpieces with the title biodiversity in Hey Meadows effects of intensive agriculture and ground dwelling macro invertebrates. The study was conducted in South Tyrol, a small province in the north of Italy. And here agriculture is an important sector. Animal husbandry is practices almost all over the province and it is an important incoming source for the mountain farmers. The agriculture sector has changed in the last 50 years, and intensification of agriculture is an ongoing process. The conditions of farming have changed and the trend is to maintain a higher stock and stocking density for which a higher productivity of matters is required. So we aimed in this study at elaborating how the community structure of ground dwelling invertebrates is affected by management intensity. And especially we evaluated the impact of the key management practices, namely the number of cuttings per year and the amount of fertilizers applied on the species. Composition. So we asked one question was if the management type have an impact on the species composition, species richness and species diversity of ground dwelling invertebrates. And the second question was, are there some species which are referring a specific type of matters. So the study sites were located in Barbie and Barbiano, a small village in South Tyrol. And there we selected six mountain hay meadows. From the six meadows, three were subjected to intensive entry to extensive and agricultural practices. So the three extensively used hay meadows were moved only once a year and not fertilized, whereas the three intensively used hay meadows were moved and fertilized up to five times per year. So for investigating the ground dwelling invertebrates, we installed four pitfall crops in every meadow for a period of four weeks, once in autumn 2018, and then for a second time in spring 2019. So when the sampling was finished, we sorted all macroinvertebrates and identified them at least to other levels. We, the spiders, harvest men, ground beetles, growth beetles, ants and grasshoppers were identified when possible then to species level. In addition, we also conducted vegetation survey to identify all plant species in every meadow for having the plant species number. So coming now to the results. So we found significant differences between species composition and the treatment and the season. And you can see here in this non-metric multi-dimensional scaling where we have the full community of the ground dwelling macroinvertebrates, the treatment, and also the two seasons. And you can see that each spot represents a pitfall trap, and the spider web centers are the weight and center of the management. So you can see that the first axis separates well the two seasons, whereas the second axis separates well the two treatments. And you can also see that the plant species richness was higher in the extensively used hay meadows which you can see on this blue arrow. Then we selected for groups or for taxa, where we did the identification to species levels, which are the lucosidae, which are the wolf spiders, the carabidae, which are the ground beetles, the stapelineidae, which are the growth beetles and formicidae, which are the ants. And you can see here very well for the lucosidae that we found a clear separation between the extensive and intensively used meadows, and also for the two seasons. Regarding the carabid beetles, we did not find such a clear pattern like for the lucosidae, but we found the separation between the two seasons. The stapelineidae indicate separation where some species prefer either the extensively or the intensively used meadows, whereas for the formicidae we found the most indistinct pattern, so here we did not find clear differences regarding the treatments or the seasons. Then we made or we calculated the activity density for these four selected groups and the parameters of the individuals per day, the species richness and the Shannon biodiversity index. And you can see here that regarding the activity density that the lucosidae had the highest activity density during the spring season, whereas here for the formicidae they had the highest activity density during the autumn season. So if you look now on the species richness, here we found the stapelineidae had a significant higher species richness in intensively used meadows, whereas the carabid beetles tend to have a higher species richness in extensively used meadows. Coming now to the conclusion, so the first question was does the management type have an impact on species composition, species richness and species diversity of round trailing invertebrates, and we can confirm this because we found significant differences for all of them, but this not necessarily means that the extensively used hay meadows had a higher species richness or species diversity. And the second question was, are there some species which are preferring a specific type of meadows? And also this can be confirmed because we found some species that prefer a specific type of meadows, so we found them only in the intensively or in the extensively used hay meadows. Sometimes we found only a small number, but having a look on the species ecology and the preferences say that they should be in that habitat. One minute left. So, for example, and species that prefer dry habitats would not be in the irrigated intensive meadows. So, now to sum up, we can confirm that intensively used hay meadows differ from the extensively used meadows regarding the ground trailing macro invertebrates. And some groups were inhibited by the intensive management and wild spiders like the lucus cedar, for example, were not much affected by the intensive land use. And now I am at the end of my presentation and I will thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Julia. And thank you for an interesting presentation highlighting the impact of hay production intensification and seasonality on ground dwelling micro invertebrates. Very interesting. And now I would like to give the floor to Mr. Rashid Musadeq from Icarra in Morocco, who will give his presentation entitled soil organic carbon and enzymatic activity under conservation agriculture in Moroccan dry land. The floor is yours, Rashid. Mr. Rashid. Thank you. You hear me. Yes, perfect. So I will try to share my presentation. Do you see it's okay. Yeah, yeah, that's perfect. Please go ahead. Thank you. So my presentation will mainly focus in on soil organic carbon, quality and quantity and enzymatic activities under conservation agriculture in Moroccan dry land. I will did this presentation. No, my colleagues and teams from in Morocco and also some universities with some. Just for your information in Morocco, we have mainly serial based system, and we have more than, can I say 50% of our land for 1.5 million hectare and the serial system. Unfortunately, our soil used for this agricultural land have low organic matter. Recent study that we did in Morocco show that we have more than 60% of our land have less than 2% of which is seeing that what we use as conventional system is not sustainable anymore. That's why we have some high level of soil erosion rates. We have also a compaction problem. We have also some problem concerning the way water erosion and soil degradation, land degradation. The question was, will soil remain a productive when we still use this intensive. Soil organic carbon, which is the most soil has been depleted in our system, mainly by soil erosion and the use of systems and intensive farming system. As I said, we have less than 2% of organic carbon in our agriculture. So the question that we try to answer, does conservation agriculture as, can I say, more sustainable technology enhance the soil organic carbon quantity and quality to shift the negative effects of soil degradation and also climate change. For that, between INRA and ICARDA, we have one long experimental site in one site in the central Morocco. We started this study since 2004. It's a comparative analysis where we have one hectare that we dedicated for CA, for mainly in the natural system, another one with the conventional farmer doing. So we did the same that farmer doing the conventional system, but in the other one, we try to at least keep 30% of residue. Unfortunately, our farmers don't accept to keep residue on the land. This is another discussion that we can maybe have. And we use wheat food-leaguing rotation in the CA system, which is not, unfortunately, the way of the wind in the conventional for your information, more than 80% of our cereal-based system are monocropping. So this is another issue. The area where we have this study, as I said, is in central Morocco, in the Serial Plain, and we have a vertical soil as a soil type. And the climate is, can I say Mediterranean climate, around 40-100 mm, and also Mediterranean temperature, around 25 degrees. So we study many properties, but for this presentation I focus mainly on soil organic carbon. We use mercury and Blake. We use also bulk density and to measure the carbon stock after this 60 years of study. We focus on the humic acid and also soil enzymatic properties. We use method developed for this issue in the different reference for this enzymatic activities. So the main result that we find that after 11 years of adopting CA, we shift from this degradation process that we have found in an intensive system that we use in conventional system. And in this one, we at least start to increase the carbon on the soil. As you said in this result, more than 3 hectare increased after 11 years. For humic substance, also we have this result showing that using this technology we can enhance the humic acid and humine, which is very important as an indicator of the quality of the soil. And we have other parallel studies showing that we have increased aggregate stability of the soil and also we have more positive effect to reduce soil erosion. 50% of soil erosion was reduced in this site due to this humic and humine. Concerning the biological indicators, here we find that we increase by 3 prime, the DNA, which is an indicator showing the importance of the biota is more higher under this system than in the conventional system. We also measured the alkaline phosphatase, which is also higher under no chain compared to conventional, which means that we have more phosphatase enzyme that can help in the cycle of phosphorus in the soil. This is very important. Aralysis phosphatase, it's important also for sulfur and sulfur cycle in the soil and we find that it's higher and under this soil where we adopt this no chain system compared to conventional systems. Last one is the Leucine aminopropidase, it's important parameters for nitrogen and the cycle of nitrogen is also considered, but we didn't find some difference in this issue of this enzyme. Mainly we still have to understand why, but this is another situation where we have some similarity between the both systems. You have one minute, okay. Okay, I conclude quickly that this study attests that we need the effectiveness of this conservation agriculture as a system of soil management in arid and Sumi arid region. It's not only for temporal system but also in arid and Sumi arid. In addition to the positive effects on that if we adopt to increase the soil biological activities and more research I think is needed to monitor the effects of crop management and also soil biological enzyme activity in this Sumi arid zone. As we didn't find many study in our, you know, region to compare and to conclude, but this is a starting point and maybe we need to go further on this issue. By the end, I need some acknowledgement for support having from Ikarda in order for having this result. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for an interesting presentation highlighting the impact of, of tillage management on soil carbon stocks and soil and semantic activity in your context in Morocco, the island cost context. Now, I'll, I'll read out. Now we'll move to the Q&A session. I invite you to the Q&A session. And I'll read out a few questions selected from the chat so that you can respond to them live. So, here. First question to Mr. Muzinguzzi. Is there an alternative to glyphosate in the study area? Is it manual weeding? Is it another type of herbicide? Or and how to convince the farmers? This is a question from Rosa Poch. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, in a typical African agricultural system, we've been using the hand weeding. Even when you're opening the land, we've been actually using the hoe. In majority of our farmers here, they use the hoe to open up land. It is a traditional way of opening up the land with the hoe. But of course, with advancement in tractors and mechanization, majority have been adopting the use of tractors, but still very few, very few. So the farmers have been challenged on how they can actually do farming in the cheapest way. So the introduction of the herbicide as a conservation tillage approach has been quickly adopted by many, many farmers because you can apply this herbicide on a bigger junk of land and probably then open up the land with minimum weed disturbance. So, majority of the farmers have adopted it and actually we have quite a number of chemicals that have been introduced from all over the world to Uganda and this region. And we don't know their impact on soil biodiversity. So this glyphosate, of course, has been around globally. It's a global chemical, which is well known. But still farmers, as they use it, they don't know its implication on what could be happening in the soils. And that's why we did a quick study to assess how these herbicides could be affecting the soil micro fauna in the short term. Of course, we need to understand this further by looking at long term experiments, but also looking at studies where these herbicides have been used for long in our systems here particularly. So we don't have alternatives, which are very easy to adopt because they are demanding financially. So this herbicide approach looks to be one of the quicker alternative. And so we need to really develop a mechanism to help our farmers here. Thank you very much, Patrick. They have another question to Mr. Rashid. Did you notice any increase in productivity of the no-tillage soils? How do farmers respond to the performance of conservation practices? Okay, my interesting question. Yes, we noticed the increase of yield under the no-till system, mainly in dry year. We have more average about 10 ton by hectare. I said 10 cantal. One to two, it depends of the year, but mainly it's about 10 ton if the average in normal year. And farmers who are working with us in some projects just start adopting the technology. And actually in Morocco, we are working to prepare like a roadmap to promote this technology for more than 1.5 million hectare for next 10 years, which means that not only farmers understood the importance of this technology, but also our decision makers, the Ministry of Agriculture in the case of Morocco, and I think it's the same for North Africa because of the mainly water limitation, but also the degradation of soil. I mean, we adopt this technology, but for not only a few years, we have to keep it at least for a decade. We can really increase the productivity and also to shift from this climate change and land degradation difficulties that we have in our region. Thank you very much. Also, a question for Ms. Mary Bartz. And it's related to the importance of the context to explain some of the responses you got, even as these responses may have also been influenced by time, because you did this study in with a 10 year span and difference and there is changes, political changes, changes that happen that might influence the overall context. So maybe you can also explain a bit because as I noted earlier, knowing Brazil, well, the context of the Southern Brazil and where the first study was carried out and the second in Mato Grosso, they are significantly different. So do you think this had an effect on the responses you got? Thank you, Mr. Edamundo for the question. Yes, there is one point that we discussed among the researchers that the regions they really are quite different. But on the other hand, usually when we as part from this Brazilian Autilla Federation, the public is mainly almost the same that are participating. So the view usually is the same. In fact, of course, it's quite different, far enough from the south from the east. But in one hand that we had a period in Brazil that really the farmers, they forgot to do the good practices. And I think now they are seeing what is the result of not doing good practices to enhance the environment. So even as we are a reference for a no-tillage system, a conservation method, there was a period that farmers really are... They don't are doing the job great. So and then I think that that is some question that can relate to the response. And even in 2008 is four years ago, five years ago. And this time also we have seen in all the regions a different view for the soil biodiversity in Brazil. So the view is changing among the different regions from Brazil. In south, in the Seado region, the views are different now. But for the response I think maybe can be some related with the particularity from the region. How can I explain? I was hoping that in south Brazil we would have a better response even 15 years ago. So I thought was quite good for that time and was a little bit better. Then your latest in some aspects, but in other aspects we see this kind of confusion among the interview. So it's not easy to explain. Okay. Well, thank you very much anyway, Marie. And this brings us to the closing of this session and starting of the next part of the session. So with these dear participants, let's start with part two of parallel session number five of the 2021 Global Symposium on soil biodiversity. Thanks to some of you who have joined since the first hour. And again, it is a great honor to be here with all of you today. My name is Edmundo Barrios and I will be moderating this session. In the second hour of parallel session number five, we will be listening to four additional presentations of 10 minutes each. I will kindly remind the presenters to keep your presentations to 10 minutes so that we can have time for Q&A at the end. And at minute nine of your intervention, I will be letting you know that there is one minute left. And it is really important that we can leave a bit more time for questions and answers at the end. Before starting, I'll kindly ask you to check the Zoom chat as some rules of information are found there. Please use the chat. Please use the chat box to post your questions and include them at the beginning of your questions include the name to whom you are directing the question. We will choose a few questions to be answered live later. And the rest will be answered via chat. The host continues to be Julie and she's here to help in case you have any any issues and you can contact her via the private message option of the chat box. Without further delay, I would like now to give the floor to Mohammed Idbela from Federico Segundo University, Federico Second University of Naples in Italy, who will give his presentation entitled repeated applications of organic amendments, promote beneficial microbiota, and improve soil fertility. The floor is yours, Mr. Mohammed. Thank you, moderator. I hope you can hear me well. Yes, perfect. Share my screen. Okay. I hope you are able to see the screen. My name is Mohammed Idbela. I'm a Ph.D. student at Federico Second University of Naples in Italy. And I will be presenting one of my Ph.D. accession titles, repeated applications of organic amendments, promote beneficial microbiota, improve soil fertility. Mohammed, could you hold your microphone close to your... Okay, yes. Perfect. Yeah. Okay, I'm sorry. Yes, my presentation is entitled repeated applications of organic amendments, promote beneficial microbiota, improve soil fertility, and increase crop yield. Intensive agriculture is characterized by high levels of input and output per unit of agricultural land area, such as the overall practices like the use of high yielding varieties, application of chemical fertilizers and agrochemicals, which in fact helps increase the crop yield and consequently result in economic benefits for the farmer. However, the adoption of intensive agriculture systems for a long period might lead to a deterioration of physical, chemical, and biological quality of the soil, which in fact creates what we call in the agricultural field the soil sickness that in turn or consequently affects negatively the crop yield and the quality. In fact, the adoption of monoculture coupled with intensive use of synthetic fertilizers induce soil sickness as a consequence of many deterioration factors like the deterioration of chemical and physical properties, the reduction of microbial biomass and activity, the loss of natural soil suppression and accumulation of allelopathic compounds also that are the result of the decomposition of the leaves on the soil surface. Yet a possible solution for these problems is the application of organic amendments such as the compost, the animal and green manure, the olive waste on the soil properties including the improvement of soil aggregation and available water holding capacity, the increase of organic matter in the soil and the microbial activity and biomass protection against soil-borne pathogens such as fungi and viruses, and in general the support of plant growth. These beneficial effects of organic amendments, they largely depend on the quantity and the quality of the organic materials, but also on the application frequency because many studies have focused only on the impact of single annual application of organic amendments, but few available studies have considered in fact the effect of frequent applications. In this context, a two-year mesochism experiment was performed by conditioning the soil with 11 treatments that compare the effects of conventional practices like the use of synthetic fertilizers or formulations against the organic management, the use of different organic management types and different application frequencies. In our case, we used on the rocket Iroca Sativa, so we have evaluated the differences on the crop yield, the soil fertility, the soil microbiota, and also independently with an experiment of these 11 treatments on the soil suppresiveness against some soil phytopathogenic viruses. During this experiment, three types of organic amendments were used. We have the alpha-alpha straw, the compost made from buffalo manure and the biochar of beech wood with also their combination based on the complementary properties. For example, we have the alpha-alpha with compost, they are rich in nitrogen, they are very important sources of nitrogen, and wood biochar, that is the main support of microbial development, so we have mixed them in order to obtain high crop yield, effective maintenance of soil fertility, and also to avoid excessive in mineralization. And as you can see here, there are the 11 treatments, the first one is the untreated soil as the control or soil treated with mineral fertilization with frequent treatment or mineralization but previously with the fumigation, and the fumigate that we use is mitam sodium, or the application of organic amendments as single application or frequent application. The single application was done by incorporating each year powdered organic material to the soil, whereas the frequent application by spreading organic liquid extract on the soil surface every week, in fact. We have made 10 cycles of this rocket cultivation during 2 years, and later on we have measured the following parameters like the soil chemical properties, microbiological properties, soil microbiota, and independently we use the same treatments in order to evaluate the supressness against the tomato-spotted, it's TSWV, tomato-spotted, wild virus. Okay, as you can see in the results, the results they have demonstrated in the panel A that the accumulated crop biomass, it was significantly higher in mesocosm amended with single application of alpha-alpha with and without biochar, followed by treatments with single application of manure, then frequent applications of organic material, and the lowest yield was observed in mesocosm subjected to soil fumigation and application of synthetic fertilizers. As also in the panel B that you can see, which is the difference between the second and the first year of crop biomass, we can see a variable response when applying organic amendments ranging from minus 30% for the frequent application of manure to plus 31% for the frequent application of alpha-alpha with char. And it's noteworthy that mesocosm treated with conventional management showed a remarkable negative difference in crop biomass between the two experimental years. Regarding the nitrate content in the leaves, which gives an idea about the qualities, because this rocket is a leafy vegetable. So we see that the use of synthetic fertilizers as well as the addition of alpha-alpha with and without biochar as single applications are the ones that recorded higher concentrations of nitrate in the leaves compared to the other treatments. So when we move to the percentage of alive plants, seven days after sowing the seeds, we see that both untreated and soil treated with organic amendments had higher seedling establishment rates, more than 75%, except for the frequent application of manure which had a lower value of alive seedlings and very low for fertilization and fumigation plus mineral treatments. And moving now to the microbiota, especially the bacterial abundance at first. At the philom level, we see that the hierarchical clustering has separated the treatments into three main groups. The first group included at the left included the untreated soil and treatments with frequent applications of manure, where the relative abundance here of cyanobacteria was higher than the other treatments. On the contrary, we had lower relative abundance of bacteria with it and proteobacteria. Then we have a second group in the middle composed of the other treatments with organic amendments, where the chloroflexia and veromicrobial phila that were generally higher than in other treatments. You have one minute left, sorry. Okay, then we have the third group. So since we have only one minute, we move to the soil fungi. We see also our variability among the treatment. Then to also to the correlation between treatments and between the soil properties, the microbiome, and we see really we see a very big variability of these treatments or of the soil properties that are affecting or positively or negatively the crop yield, the percentage of alive plants, and also the nitrate in the leaves. And to move to this, we see that when we applied the mineral treatments with the fumigation, we see that we have the highest percentage of infected dead plants, whereas the other organic amendments are as single or as frequent application that we had a very minor, minor dead infection, deadly infection. As a general conclusion or as logical conclusion, the application of organic materials compared with the use of synthetic fertilizers have an immediate positive effect both on soil fertility and soil microbiota, which increases the crop productivity as a long term. And for the first time we found that the use of organic amendments, they reduce the incidence of this virus infection, as well as the mortality of the infected plants. And future studies are needed to study more combinations of organic amendments and more application frequencies. And thank you for your attention. Thank you very much. Mr. Now, I'd like to, to, to give the floor to. No, no, thank you for an interesting presentation, sorry, highlighting the impact of repeated application of organic materials and how they can reduce negative effects of fertilizers. And so for me got an intensive agricultural vegetable production, I think this was an interesting highlight there. Now I like now to give the floor to Mr. Peter could stash their could stash her from the Institute of Environmental Biotechnology in Austria, who will give his presentation entitled microbial biodiversity in the field is related to fruit and vegetable health and link to post harvest quality. Before is yours, Mr. Peter. Thank you very much for the organizers to give me the opportunity to present here. I want to speak about how microbial biodiversity on the field is connected to health of vegetables and fruits and is also linked to post harvest quality. The plant is usually now recognized as a hollow biome, which means it makes a unit with its microbiome and the microbiome is the microbiota, and also the theater of activity of those microbiota, which is was recently defined by the microbiome support project. But it's actually quite nice to visualize this using microscopy as you can see here, plant roots colonized by a thick layer of of bacteria. So, the plant microbiome is is nowadays also known to be involved in the germination in plant growth in plant metabolism and it's also key to plant health. And this bios is usually connected to disease. We also know that the plant microbiome is transferred from the seed to the plant habitats like foods or phylocea, and it's also transmitted from seed to the next generation. Also taking up some, some stuff from the soil. I will give you a short overview about the collection of different studies that talk about different things, like how does feed management affect fruits and vegetable microbiome. How does the microbiome quality, the post house quality loss changes the microbiome, and what the proportion of the microbiome is transferred from the feed to the post house storage. So we did a couple of high food sequencing studies, amplifying specific genes like the 16 S gene or the ideas gene for bacteria fungi, and analyzing the data using some bioinformatics tools like time to. So let's start in the in the field and let's look how management practice, comparing organic and conventional management practice and uses shifts in the fruit of apples. And further we looked also how other differences in the different issues and later we will look shortly about the post house treatment. So conventional management practice usually was connected to a lower diversity in comparison to organic field management practice. And we also have a significant shift in the microbiome diversity here. And interestingly, if you look at the different micro habitats in the food, so if you look at the below the food bar or the seeds. We can also find distinct differences between those micro habitats. And again, comparing organic and conventional management practice we find differences between the micro habitats depending on the management practice. So it was shown for bacteria, and also a couple of years before by a colleague in on fungi. And now let's start with the post harvest treatment so after the harvest we try to to treat our fruits to increase the storability and one very simple but very effective for apple is hot water dipping. And we tried to ask, is this also connected with microbial shifts of the food. Interestingly, we did not found any, any major shifts in the microbial diversity between treated and untreated fruits. So when we looked at deceased foods after the storage, we, we noticed a severe shift, severe drop in diversity and the severe shift in the microbial composition of those deceased. So post harvest disease is connected to a huge shift in the microbial diversity. So now I will move to, to talk more about how the field is connected to the post harvest storage. And for this we did a couple of studies on sugar beets in recent years, studying the microbiome on the field. And also in the storage piles, which are called beat clamps. So they are stored on the field sites in big highs before they go into the sugar factory. And I will present the sum up of all the studies that we did here. So usually what we found is that deceased fruits in the field and also in the beat in the beat clamps. We had a lower diversity. And this was true for bacteria and also for fungi. We, we found that we have a significant shift of the microbiome depending on the health status of those foods, and not so much depending on the origin of those samples. And this is what you also can see in the composition of, of the microbiome of those samples. We, we see a significant shift depending on disease. And interestingly, we really find a very similar composition of the microbiome in healthy foods in the beat clamps and also in the, in the field, and also a similar shift of the microbiome depending on the disease. So even this, this very similar taxonomic shifts we try to, to track the, the field microbiome onto the post harvest storage and using some bioinformatic prediction tools, we saw that there was a huge connection between the fields and the post harvest storage. 60 to 90% of the microbiome was transferred. And interestingly, the decaying clams carried the microbiome of deceased fields while healthy clams carried a major fraction of the microbiome of healthy fields. So over with this taxonomic shifts, we also try to develop some disease indicator taxes, tracking the disease development over time and sugar beats this is sugar loss. And interestingly, we also were able to use this taxa to predict the disease, even before it happened. So to sum up all these things that I tried to show you here with this collection of studies. We saw that field management practice affects the food and vegetable microbiome significantly comparing organic and conventional management practice. Plant colonizing bacteria and fungi are crucial for food and vegetable quality. Fields microbiomes are transferred from the field to the post harvest storage and microbial signatures are associated with post harvest quality loss. And what we want to have is, is we try to conserve the healthy microbiome on the fruits and the vegetables by influencing biotic and abiotic factors. And you should keep in mind that the diversity that we found on the field is directly connected to the post harvest storage. We also have a healthy field and a healthy plant. We also have a healthy fruit and vegetable. Looking closer into the soil biodiversity we also colorate with a lot of different partners in Europe in the horizon 2020 project Excalibur. We're trying to access the biodiversity of different agricultural soils in Europe, and we're trying to boost them using some bio inocular. And please follow up on this using social media and our website. I'm already on the end of my talk. I want to thank all the collaborators in this in the studies, the funding agencies and of course everybody that listened. Thank you very much, Peter. And thanks for this interesting presentation highlighting the, the important link between field microbial diversity and post hard post harvest fruit and vegetable quality and health. I think this is quite a novel approach that reaches into food systems, like few studies have done. Thank you. So now, with this, I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Eric Palewski from Ramachis a agricultural research organization in Israel, who will give his presentation entitled effect of free living nematodes and their associated microbial community on conservation biological control. And in the utilization of soil predatory mice. The floor is yours. Thanks so much. I'm really honored to be here today. And so I'd like to begin my talk a just hold on a second. So, yes. And the title of my talk is effective free living nematodes. And it's associated microbial community on conservation biological control. They have a international team from USDA from Columbia, Canada, Brazil and I, I'm from Israel from the agricultural research organization. I'd like to begin just to show you, share with you the team from Beltsville, who was really responsible for some incredible images that I'm going to share with you, and I'd like to dedicate this talk to Gary Wushan friendship and an honor to him. He, he died just recently from COVID was really quite sad. And this is the team here from from Beltsville. With that I'd like to begin my talk. So my presentation objectives are to convince you with stunning images taken with a low temperature scanning electron microscope that soil predatory mice feed on both beneficial free living nematodes and plant parasitic root not nematodes. And I'd like to demonstrate how free living nematodes and their associated microbial community can enhance conservation biological control of insects and root not nematodes. And I'll show this in two case studies that we performed. The first, the house on housefly control by Macrochellus and Bersoni and the second on root not nematode control with the soil predatory mites stratulatus skimitus. So this is a, these are images of stratulatus skimitus. And this is a predation on the free living nematode. And this is taken with a low temperature scanning electron microscope, which allows us to freeze basically what we see and a presented as it was the second we saw it so there's no loss, no loss of actually what happened. And this is the might identifies might does not have eyes and identifies nematode by scent and and first it first does this by actually touching its prey here the free living nematode with its front leg, and then it proceeds to touch it with its pups and actually bite into it. And so this is slightly larger, larger image and here we focus on the ganathasoma the mouth parts of the might. And the green is there are the pups, the orange or the chelicera and it's biting into the nematode. And what we see this yellowish brown is the liquid oozing out of the nematode that is frozen at minus 120 Celsius. And these images are of the plant parasitic nematode. So the pressure might be on a plant parasitic nematode a very important nematode. And we see it at first the entire might and then focusing on on the interior parking and see the nematode here between its pulse. And here, from the side, you can see the enlarged large view of the ganathasoma, the front leg, the green palp that pops colored in green, the chelicera colored in orange, and the the plant parasitic nematode is being held between its pups. The yellow is the labrum which is sort of like the tongue of the might. And here in dark red, you can see the chronicle eye and the tip of the chronicle eye. There is a poor here where the salivary stud will secrete the saliva and the the prey of these mites are extraordinarily digested. So you can see here that it is just before the the chronicle eye are thrusted into the nematode and and after that it will be paralyzed and digested. So this is really quite incredible image, the first ever done, and it was actually taken by by Dr. Gary Bushon. And this in the last figure here you see the the nematode enlarged with its stylet. Okay, so I'm going to share with you two case studies. The first is the effect of provisioning the free living nematode, rabbitella axii on biological control efficacy of the housefly by the predatory Mike Makocellis and Bresoni. And the idea was that we wanted to see whether the addition of this free living nematode would enhance the efficacy of the of the control agent so we either gave it only the past so housefly eggs or housefly eggs and and the free living free living nematode. And this is how the nematodes were reared they were on they were basically on beam being decayed by bacteria and these and these nematodes are back to your forest so they feed on the bacteria in this bean soup. And so here we see so the biological control attained is presented here based on fly emergence so the lower the emergence, the better the control. And we're showing here the difference between two treatments, either without nematode so only the past and the addition of the free living nematode. Which is so it's just in blue so we can see them first week after in into fly emergence. We're actually having fewer flies where we only gave the predatory Mike, the, the past to eat and more flies when we added additional food. But the week later, what happens is you see a dramatic reduction in the number of flies emerging, where we added the alternative food, versus a continuing a increase of emergence where it was only offered the past. So here to the right, you see the number of predatory Mike so this went from six mites to over 400 when we only offered the past, but three times the amount where he added the past and, and the additional food, the free living nematode. Now I'm going on to the second case study that we that I'm presenting here and this is on a dwarf tomatoes microton tomatoes. So we had that a three effects at two levels with or without the free living nematode in its culture media with or without the predator, and with or without the root not nematode. So we had eight treatments, and it was replicated 12 times and we connected to experiments. One for five weeks and one for 15 weeks one until flowering and a second until fruiting. You have a minute left. So basically what you can see here is that the, the damage was, it was the least when we had both predators and free living nematodes, the most when we had neither. But in between when we had either no predators but with the free living nematodes or with predators without, we had the same level of damage. And here, we also saw an effect on a on full on nitrogen uptake and, and potassium uptake, where freediving them free living nematodes, they augmented both. So I'm going to fit these are my take home messages, and, and open questions. So diet diversity is essential for soil predatory might sustainability and free living nematodes are key ingredients in their diet. Terrestrial might and simply aquatic free living nematodes depend on a fine balance between soil water content and duration. To this end, soil food web researchers must work together with soil scientists to create healthy agricultural soils. And this is a great question and this is perhaps a continuation to the first talk we had in different cropping systems. What organic amendments are best suited to enhance the conservation of the soil food web from microbes through free living nematodes and predatory mice. And, and these are, these are two images that are image and video that one first prize and then as a fauna contest of this meeting. With that I'd like to thank the students that participated from Brazil in this research and my fund gave us thanks very much. Thank you very much. Mr. Eric for the display of visual proof of the impact of soil organisms on biological control. And thank you for interesting presentation highlighting the goal of identifying and optimizing soil management practices and amendments to enhance biological control services of soil best buy soil organisms. And these are like to give the floor to our last but not least presenter means it is Victorino from Edward monglana University in Mozambique, who will give her presentation entitled microbial resources for Mozambican agriculture, use of our boys are blue scholar my chorizal fungi as a sustainable alternative to chemical input in cotton production. So the floor is yours. You have maybe your, you are on mute. Do you. Maybe you muted. He's writing in the chat. Maybe he's muted. Yes. She's saying that she can unmute. Can she be unmuted from our side. Yes, she has proposed rights. So she should be able to mute herself. Can you try me series. Yes, perfect. Okay, perfect. Now, sorry for the delay. I'm here to present this work, especially on cotton. So I'll start by saying that this work was done in Mozambique, a certain country from the African continent. Is your video on, can you put your video on or you don't have video. I don't have video. Go ahead. I'll try to. Okay. Video on. There you are. Okay. So Mozambique is a country from the southern Africa is Africa that lives essentially from agriculture and most of it done by local farmers or local families and cotton production is one of the main import culture that exports more than 80 million per year. So this culture was severely attacked by attacked by the biotic and the biotic factors. One of them was the civil war that long lasted in Mozambique, and also solar erosion so the country took part on initiative in the national initiative to improve the cotton production using sustainable alternatives of production. As you already hear from the other presentations since yesterday, there are bio fertilizers or micro organisms that lives in the soil and can be used as bio fertilizers and one example of them are the micro rhizophongi, which lives in the soil and gives to the plants many, many benefits as the increase in the water uptake and the promotion or boost of boosting the fence against root pathogen soil pathogens in general. So the main objective of this presentation. Let me see this one second. I think your, your slides are not moving. So, could indicate when I should change the slide. Okay, you may change it now to slide five please. Slide five. Next one. Yes. Five main objectives of this presentation was to evaluate the growth of cotton using different substrates sand and soil common soil, using two common the next one please. Thank you. And then using the two varieties of cotton and see if they are ability to be mycorrhized also to evaluate the effect of fungal. Mycorrhizophongi on the growth. And also identify the present are both mycorrhizophongi in the soil with evaded with cotton. So next slide please next slide please we use as I told before three sub three variables. Two different substrates substrates to different varieties and three inocular. So next slide please we notice that we, we that the cotton viaries both of them were able to be mycorrhized and well mycorrhized, which will be seen on the next slide with the levels of infection. We use the optic mic microscope to evaluate this and also transmission electron microscope. As you may see on this graphic we have a high frequency of mycorrhization, especially for the inocular having two types of two types of mycorrhizophongi, which is Michael agro commercial, commercial inocular this is in accordance with the many reference that says that when you use an inocular with the multiple spaces of mybuscular mycorrhizophongi you may have higher frequencies of mycorrhization. Next slide please. We also noted the higher amificated root system in the plants higher height and less diseases. This for both variety which is not shown here. This led to one publication in an international conference, and also we intend to do the we intend to study in soil as I saw as I told before, in the Mozambican soil to see which local our buscule mycorrhizal could be identified. Next slide please. So we did our sampling in the center province of Mozambique in Ampula, which is the main province that cultivates cotton, and we were able to use it to identify our buscule mycorrhizophongi using PCR. And this data are still on analysis using Illumina mysec technology, please next slide. So to conclude, I will say that yes indeed next slide please commercial inocular able to colonize cotton, and especially the inocular with more than one species of our buscule mycorrhizophongi. And as future steps we intended to investigate which are the species that are present in Mozambican soil that is cultivated with with cotton. Next slide please. I'm speaking very fast I'm sorry for everyone. So next slide. I would like to thank the team that that worked with us in this particular project. Next slide. The University of Turin, especially the Institute for protection and sustainable protection of plants and thanks to this amazing audience that stood with us until the end I'm the last presenter so thank you very much. And that is all I had to present to you. Okay, thank you Miss Iris. And thank you for an interesting presentation highlighting advances in the process of isolating and characterizing locally adapted our buscule mycorrhizophongi inocular that can be then tested as part of the tailoring of bio fertilizers for cotton in Mozambique. Thank you very much. Now we will move on to the Q&A. And there you are. Okay. And let's see that we have some questions. Some of them have been already answered. There is one which is directed to all, which says, could sinecoculture be classified as an intensive use of soil. And this is directed to all anyone would like to answer that. Sorry, may you repeat the question please. The question is, could sinecoculture be classified as an intensive use of soil? Sinecoculture. If I might answer this question. Yes. In my opinion, I don't think that sinecoculture could be considered as intensive agriculture because a lot of studies have demonstrated that it's because sinecoculture is like a source of crop rotation. Because a lot of studies have demonstrated that what really decreases the crop yield is the monoculture in general. The decomposition of species specific leaves in the soil that creates this sort of negative feedback in the soil that decreases the crop yield with the successive generations. So when you add many other species at the same area, this is considered a sort of diversifying the carbon source in the soil, which enhance the crop yield. This is what I have to say. Very good. Thank you. Any other question? Let's see. If we don't have any questions. I myself will then make a question to to. To Peter, Peter Kush stack her structure. And the question is, how, how did the, how do you think the, the context of application will influence that linkage between the microbiome in the field and the microbiome in the, in the, in the post storage. And I find really interesting this connection that you make because I mean we are. There is an increasing demand towards diversified foods, food and diversified diets. And what is missing is often vegetables and fruits. So that connection that you're making is really interesting at the full system level. So I'm just trying to think if you see that there may be what would be challenges to that connection. What in terms of the predictability of being able to predict. How that will influence the health of plants or health of products at horse harvest. And then how that will influence then healthy diets and health and healthy people, which is a connection that you make but still maybe some steps in between. Thank you. Yeah, I would try to have the rest of. But what we usually we think as when we eat some fruits or vegetables when we eat them as a nutritional value but, but we also have to think about that they are colonized by millions and of microbes and these are also part of those fruits and vegetables. What we actually saw in in one of these studies is that that even Apple contains more microbes in the inside and fruit flesh, compared to its outside. So it's even impossible to wash it off. So, by having a healthy soil microbiome and transmitting that to to the fruit. We also influence the, the kind of microbes that we also consume and, and now we also in our horizon. We have a project called Haiti Matt, which is dealing with the expose on of human and, and there we also study. What the microbes that we consume have what kind of influence they have on on our gut microbiome and on our gut health. Everything is kind of connected from the field to human health in the end. Of course there's a lot of missing steps, still missing and then the lot of studies to perform in the future to prove everything but I believe that it's very well connected everything. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, there is a question here to again to to Peter. Does the skin of Apple filter some of the microbiome or does it leaks every microorganism indiscriminately. I believe we have to think about this differently because the microbes come into the fruit, while the fruit develop. So already stuff that is on the, on the flower will also be later on in inside of the fruit. So it's not coming from the outside and transfer transfer to the, to the fruit flesh and to the seeds. It's, we have to study it in the during the fruit development. That's why also we see some differences in the different tissues of the fruit. Okay. Thank you very much. Let's see. I don't see any other question additional. Well, I'll make one more question with to Dr. Eric Paleski. That was very interesting to see in a bit of polling also to see that that these are biological control agents are eating both the good and the bad. Yeah, now the question you raise the point of well what sort of organic or amendments can be used to maybe manage that that relate that interaction. My question is, is there feasibility that to make the, the somehow make the, the, the, the, the negative, the bad ones, more tasty, so that they get preferential, preferentially eaten by the prey by the predator. So I don't think it's a matter of being preferential, but freedom. What I was trying to say, and trying to encourage the work with soil scientists, especially focusing on what organic matter could be added to the soil to provide food for bacteria, or in the forest nematodes, so that they'll be more abundant, but also that the soil structure should be conserved and improved. So if the as, as we, I think as we improve soil structure and, and, and, and organic matter surrounding the roots we will have larger populations of both bacteria for us and fungivores nematodes. And those will enhance just like we showed in this simple lab study with the, with the housefly those will enhance enhance substantially the populations of predatory mice. And, and they will be more abundant and then they will be actually in place to protect the plant from these plant parasitic nematodes. And I think it's a numbers game. And, and the, basically the better the structure in the structure the soil is also very important because these mites they're obviously substantially larger than nematodes and the structure is really a limiting factor for the for them to, to be effective. So the better the soil structure is more organic matter there is available for these, for these free living beneficial nematodes, the more they will be. And, and looking at this just this one link in the chain. It will allow these predators to be more abundant and more available to protect the plant against these plant parasitic nematodes they're really very if you look at the percentage of nematodes in the soil. The plant parasitic nematodes are really very small in healthy soils they're really small proportion and the real abundance is in the healthier nematodes. Of course they have many other functions. All right. Thank you very much. Well. Okay, there is a question for Eric. How can small farmers reproduce the predatory the predatory might own farm. Great question so I really think that we have to think what we have to work more towards conservation biological control and not augmented biological control, especially for small farmers I think I've met the only time I think it's, or the only place for actually adding agricultural agents is an intensive agriculture like in the greenhouse where you can really manipulate your, your everything your soil or your conditions here, and it's also very intensive so you're not applying it on large areas. But if the small farmer is working in an open field or in orchards, then really he has to think about conservation agriculture means you have to. Think about soil biodiversity and soil conservation, and we have to think about how we're going to make this soil a better place for the natural enemies to to behave to to perform. I think it's all about protecting your soils caring for soils, reducing the use of herbicides, enhancing the amount of organic matter improving the soil structure. The your predators are there you don't have to put them there the limiting factor really is the conditions that they're working at their work, they need they need their conditions in order to perform, so I would not add predatory mites to the soil. I would, I would work on enhancing organic matter protecting soil from compaction doing everything to improve the structure and and the and the organic matter. Well, thank you very much. This was really comprehensive response. And as I don't see any more questions and we are about closing the the session. I'd like to maybe make some concluding remarks. We have seen today, quite a diverse set of studies from different parts of the world, ranging from tiny microbes and land larger soil macrofauna in the context of agriculture and food systems to the exploration of people's perceptions on soil macrofauna importance. We note that there is a significant convergence that agricultural intensification represented by increased tillage, fertilization, and fumigation of soil shows negative impacts on the abundance, diversity, and activity of soil organisms responsible for soil mediated ecosystem services, such as soil carbon storage, nutrient cycling and availability, water availability, and storage and biological control of pests and diseases. However, there is an increasing alignment and interest in the alignment with ecological principles, which has been highlighted. We just heard about, you know, reduction in disturbance, which often affects soil structure, reduction in agrochemicals, increasing diversity of components in the system, but also in niches because the even notion of improved soil structure is associated with all these different little places with different conditions that create opportunities for different organisms to inhabit there. So diversity of niches supports diversity of species, and hence it supports diversity of functions. And this all comes together with increasing amounts of organic matter in the soil, and this comes together with increased recycling of organic materials, and also the importance of system redesign that as a key notion of how to contribute to transitions towards sustainable food, agricultural and food systems. I found particularly a novel, the study linking microbial diversity in the field with microbial diversity of fruit and vegetables, and to post harvest quality. Because it makes this link that is often not explored from the agricultural system to the food system. So it's another scale, it's another connection, which I think was very useful to show the relevance of the information and the evidence we are collecting here in soil biodiversity. So, with this, I think I come to a close and we have one minute left if there is anything else anyone would like to say, Rosa, would you like to say something. Yeah, just thank you to all the participants and to this amazing session that has said Mundo said that has shown many organisms and moreover, all the interactions between these organisms and and the environment that's such environment. And, well, I think that the main conclusion is that we know only a very small part of these interactions. And so we need still a lot of research looking for more, more applications of these relations between organisms and plants and how it affects to the food system. This is the theme of the three that we are having. So, yeah, just thank you also Mundo for this chatting of these two hours that it's not easy through the screen. I know. Thank you. Okay, well, thank you to all and we have come to the closing of a very exciting session with a lot of food for thought. A lot of new things that we probably hadn't heard before. And images definitely that we had not seen before. So thank you again. So, yeah, bye bye. Thanks very much. Bye bye. Thank you.