Self-sufficiency level of fruits and berries in the Nordic and Baltic region is about 10% in Estonia and up to 30% in some of the other countries. One of the priorities of rural development plans is to increase local horticultural production, in accordance with the goals set by European Green Deal, which focuses on reducing the environmental footprint. Horticultural crops need more fertilizers and pesticides than arable crops, and production of mineral fertilizers causes greenhouse gases and contributes to freshwater eutrophication.
Research-based evidence is needed to prove that it is possible to reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides, without compromising yield and quality. Apple, strawberry, and blackcurrants are the most important crops and will be targeted in InNoBaHort with main objective to increase the total production of main horticultural crops in the Nordic-Baltic region with a sustainable focus. The work is split in three objectives, first is to decrease the use of fertilizers by introducing a novel energy dispersive X-rayfluorescence technique for leaf analyses in parallel with plant sap analyses. A 30% reduction in nitrogen use per hectare in strawberry is anticipated. Developing and introducing disease forecasting models and low-risk biological pesticides will be the foundation for the second objective, to decrease the number of synthetic fungicide sprays in horticultural crops.
The goal is to develop new forecasting systems for European canker in apple and Mycosphaerella leaf spot in black currants, and to transfer knowledge about apple scab and grey mould of strawberry from existing forecasting systems to Baltic countries. The antifungal effect of plant extracts on grey mould in strawberry will be evaluated. The third objective is to make a quantum loop in breeding of new apple cultivars with high levels of resistance tocanker. Different resistance components in old and new cultivars and promising breeding selections will be evaluated with an emphasison germplasm which has not been evaluated for canker susceptibility.
New knowledge will be built in the different countries by research activity and young researcher mobility, and shared in the network continuously. Regular dissemination to the industry are planned and secures short time delay in practical use of the network knowledge. In total InNoBaHort will provide an important knowledge based stepfor the Nordic-Baltic horticulture.