Main research areas
The research carried out at the Institute of Land Use, Engineering and Precision Farming Technology of the University of Debrecen represent complex scientific projects whose main objective and task is to explore and quantify the impacts and interactions of ecological, biological and agronomical factors in crop production, as well as to conduct basic scientific analysis of stress factors affecting crop stands.
The multiple-decade-old long-term experiments which are unique in Europe make it possible to provide the continuity of research, as well as to develop crop production technologies adapted to ecological circumstances and to use them in practice.
The Institute has outstanding achievements in developing modern land use, in the exploration of the correlations between field-level soil use and soil conditions, working out conventional, soil preserving and cost-saving production technologies, the preservation and improvement of soil fertility, as well as the stopping of soil degradation processes. Significant results were achieved in analysing the climate sensitivity of varieties of different genotype, as well as the physiological background of their adaptability to production site circumstances, the determination of changes in the photosynthetic performance of field crops, the quantification of the water use of crops, the determination of critical periods, drought forecast, the description of changes occurring in the plant-soil-atmosphere system and the development of computerised agroecological models.
The Institute lays great emphasis on researching the use of renewable resources, more specifically solar and wind energy. The research profile was further extended by the scientific foundations of the strategic development of North Hungarian and North Great Plain regions and counties. The performed analyses include the fields of industry, agriculture, transport, settlement network, demographic circumstances, healthcare, social care and education.
The researchers and teachers of the Institute successfully participate in Hungarian and international projects which is also shown by numerous successful projects during the recent years (NKFP, GVOP, Baross Gábor program, TAMOP, FP7, Structural Funds, Climate KIC).
The Institute lays great emphasis on cooperation with enterprises which contributes to the practical use of the outcome of research and development activity.
Research areas
- Evaluation of tillage, irrigation, fertilisation, crop density and weather factors in crop production,
- Developing environmentally sound, effective and adaptive production technologies,
- Development of organic matter management,
- Analysing the interactions of crop production factors,
- Working out variety-specific production technologies,
- Analysing the crop density, irrigation water and fertiliser reactions, as well as the natural nutrient conversion ratio of maize hybrids,
- Evaluation of the impact of conventional and soil-preserving tillage methods on the physical conditions of the soil,
- Researching the comprehensive, novel and industrial use of maize for energetic purposes.
- Increasing quality production and yield safety with modern water management and irrigation,
- Using information systems in agriculture,
- Precision agriculture,
- Examining the reliability of simulation models describing the regularities of the soil-crop-atmosphere system in the database of long-term field experiments,
- Examining environmentally sound production technologies with reduced number of operations,
- Adaptation of crop production models and DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer) in Hungary for education and research purposes and exploring the opportunities of further development,
- Validating modern experiment planning procedures and the most modern biometric methods serving the purpose of correlation clarification while taking the peculiarities of tillage research into consideration,
- Development of the algorithm of soil-crop-atmosphere models,
- Enterprise-level analysis of irrigation and irrigation system development in the North Great Plain region,
- Production of maize germ oil-based functional foods with raw material and technology optimisation,
- Determining the impacts and interactions of crop stress factors,
- Possibilities of increasing agricultural employment in the rural population,
- New forms of employment in order to develop the welfare production ability of rural communities,
- Pesticide use and risk mitigation in European farming systems using integrated crop protection,
- Exploring the possbilities of integrating biorenewable energy resources into production and practical use,
- Optimisation of biogas production processes and reduction of GHG emission by using the best available methods.