Project Progress Meeting 5

On September 12, 2024, a Progress meeting 5 of Milestone 2 MYP G6094 “Mitigation of climate change through advanced phytotechnology for military lands” held at UJEP in mixed form: participants from UJEP attended the event in persons, members of other project teams were connected on-line. Altogether 19 individuals participated in the meeting including representatives of main partners: UJEP, TVHNPU, NULP, NULES, RMC, and HA and liaisoning institutions: ZU and KazNU.

NPD Valentina Pidlisnyuk opened the event and announced the main tasks of the meeting: to finalize the results of Mil2 to be included in the Project Progress Report 2, to discuss the plans, and to overview to progress to achieving indicators requested for the Project’s successful implementation.

PPD Andryi Hertz and PhD students Viktor Markiv, TVHNPU presented results of testing ash derived from the contaminated Miscanthus biomass as soil amendment during vegetation of Z. mays L. Co-Director Vitalii Standik, NULP reported about analysis of his team at NULP has measured for soil and biomass samples received from the Lab experiments with ash and biochar. He also called for assistance with the field in Dolyna, Ukraine: this field may be considered as a substitution to Vorzel field during the establishing of HUB for presentation of Advanced Phytotechnology to end-users planned for Mil3-5. Co-Director Tatyana Stefanovska, NULES informed about the state of the art with two plantations in Vorzel (2023 and 2024 years of establishment) and overviewed the results of production of the different biochars at the pilot apparatus in cooperation with the Institute of Alternative Energy. Co-Director Mariya Marinova, RMC informed about the first results on valorization of TEs-contaminated biochar by chemical leaching. The term of her professional meeting at UJEP was proposed for 23-24 October 2024, when she plans to visit the M×g plantation in Chomutov and deliver a report at UJEP about RMC phytoremediation research. Co-Director William Haden Chomphosy, HC presented the results of a literature search to be used for review on the Economic value of the Advanced M×g Phytotechnology. He also introduced Q-methodology to be used for the estimation of the attitude of end-users to the Technology based on the survey’s results in Ukraine. Members of the UJEP team Hana Burdova, Robert Ato Newton and Abdulmannan Rouhani presented the first research on measuring the soil microbial communities, soil Carbon and Nitrogen cycles, and testing ash derived from waste wood during M×g vegetation in the Lab conditions.

The coordination and collaboration between participants were overviewed and planning steps and networking were proposed. The next Progress Project Meeting will be scheduled on November 28, 2024, after 2 months from the beginning of Mil3 starts on September 28, 2024.