Laboratory Responsible: Pantelis Barouchas, Asst. Professor,
Email: ,
Tel.: 26310 58313
The Soil Science Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture of the University of Patras covers the subject of research and knowledge provision regarding the improvement and protection of soil resources, their rational use and the increase of their productivity through precise and intelligent farming systems.
The Soil Science Laboratory is an educational and research unit located in the Department of Agriculture of the University of Patras. It is a member of the global network GLOSOLAN (Global Soil Laboratory Network) within the Global Soil Partnership initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The GLOSOLAN network aims to enhance the performance and capacity of member laboratories by integrating ground data sets and information systems to develop global standards. The laboratory has participated in many European co-financed projects, thus a specific experience in project management and transnational cooperation has been created.
Today the Soil Laboratory has taken over the full operation support of the Soil Laboratory of the Region of Western Greece (PDE), with the aim of consulting the farmers of the Region, while it implements or participates in European and National Precision Agriculture projects (OLEAS, RIS3-OPORA, RIS3 -HYDRERO, RIS3-SOILSYS, GRIT-TAGs).
Members of the Laboratory have participated or are participating in a large number of related projects (ETCP GR-IT 2007-2013 IRMA project, FP7 EUROLEGUME; EPAN II 207-2013, AGROTRACE; Western Greece RIS3 Program 2014-2020, SOILSYS, HYDRERO, OPORA, SquashHydr; ETCP GR-IT 2014-2020, TAGs, IR2MA project; Interreg – IPA CBC GR-AL 2014-2020, OLIVE_CULTURE; EPAnEK 2014-2020, ARETHOU5A; etc. ).
By a member of the Laboratory of Soil Science, he invented the automatic portable digital calcium carbonate measuring instrument for soil samples, patent no. GR1008089 (B) – 2014-01-21, Int. Cl. G01N33 / 24; G01N7 / 18 (valid until 20-10-2032) (WO2014060782 A1), an invention that is universally accepted.
Research interests
In particular, the Laboratory deals with the following subjects:
- Genesis of Soils – Problematic Soils
- Closed Drainage Systems
- Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy
- Improvement of physicochemical properties of soils using innovative materials
- Applications of Informatics in Soil Science
- Development of scientific instruments in Soil Science
Lessons
The Soil Science Laboratory, as part of its educational contribution to the aims and objectives of the Department of Agriculture, supports the courses:
- Soil science
- Soil Fertility – Fertilization of Crops
- Applied Soil Science
- Spatial Data Processing and Management
Research projects
Its members, in the context of securing research funding resources, implement or participate in European and National projects.
Examples include:
ETCP GR-IT 2007-2013 IRMA project, FP7 EUROLEGUME; EPAN II 207-2013, AGROTRACE; Western Greece RIS3 Program 2014-2020, SOILSYS, HYDRERO, OPORA, SquashHydr; ETCP GR-IT 2014-2020, TAGs, IR2MA project; Interreg – IPA CBC GR-AL 2014-2020, OLIVE_CULTURE; EPAnEK 2014-2020, ARETHOU5A; etc. )
Available Equipment
- Fully equipped soil and plant nutrition laboratory
- Diffuse Reflectance Spectrometer with integrated sphere (Shimadzu)
- Portable Diffuse Reflectance FT-IR Spectrometer (Agilent)Meteorological stations network which fully covers the Western Greece
- Automatic Lysimetric station in the polder area of Messolonghi (Western Greece)
- Portable devices and sensors
- 1x CropScan multispectral radiometer (portable reflectometer) MSRSYS92 MSR87 Eight-Band System
- 1 NDVI portable spectral radiometer (Decagon Devices)
- 2x high accuracy lysimetric balances, 60000 G SCS PRECISA
- 10x Portable EC and pH measuring devices
- 2x Portable flow and pressure devices
- 1x Portable leaf porometer, AP4 DELTA-T
- 2x Grodan WCM (substrate EC, moisture and temperature)
- 2x Thetaprobe soil moisture system (DT devices)
- 2x DL2e Loggers (Delta-T Devices Ltd, Cambridge, UK)
- 10x Em50 Dataloggers (Decagon Devices Inc. WA, USA)
- 4x pyranometers (SKYE Instruments)
- 2x pyradiometers (LP-NET 07, DeltaOhm, Italy)
- 2x T, RH sensors (model HD9008TR, DeltaOhm, Italy)
- 20x thermocouples (copper-constantan, wire diameter of 0.001”)
- 1x supersonic anemometer (Gilli Instruments)
- 2x mini meteorological stations with T, RH and radiation sensors (microstation, OnSet)
- 10x T, RH loggers (model: HOBO, Onset) with shield
- 10x 10HS soil moisture sensors (Decagon Devices Inc. WA, USA)
- 20x EC5 soil moisture sensors (Decagon Devices Inc. WA, USA)
- 1x Infrared thermometer
- Bartington Magnetic Susce
