Objectives
Tapada do Castelo R&D Centre promote Sustainable Agricultural & Ecosystem Restoration practices aiming:
- Supporting the creation of fire and drought resilient high diversity forest ecosystems
- Supporting food growers, market and home gardeners to transition to regenerative, environmentally sustainable practices
Environmental, economical & health Impact
By supporting gardeners and food growers to engage more regenerative practices, we aim at:
- Helping to improve the quality of soils, water and air
- Helping to improve the food quality produced, high nutrient content, no chemicals spraying, and as a result improve people health and energy levels.
- Reducing the need for irrigation thanks to hydrated soils and healthy more drought resilient plants
- Increasing the carbon storage in soils fighting climate change
Farm design
Our R&D Farm is divided in several experimental zones which correspond to various areas of Research & Development :
- Zone 1: Ecosystem Restoration project: reforestation of a damaged oak and chestnut trees area
- Zone 2: Ecosystem Restoration & Food Production project in a young forest of Pyrenean oaks and cork oak trees
- Zone 3: Agroforestry Food Production with an orchard of 800m of rows of fruit trees and native support plants, 70m of rows of berries lines, and 100m of row of veggie growing.
- Zone 4: A old chestnut forest diversified into an ecosystem with various nut trees and native plants
- Zone 5: Windbreak edge of native species and some food production designed to create a micro-climate ecosystem for the various plants to grow.
- Market garden (3 areas)
- Static, thermophilic and worm composting
Static Compost production with human faeces & kitchen waste
We experiment producing static compost with a 2 steps process with a view to develop a circular economy flow recycling faeces and kitchen fruit and veggies waste into a compost rich of beneficial microorganisms that is used to produce the compost extracts and teas for the food production experiments in Zone 3 to feed soil microbiome, improve soil structure & water retention, reduce erosion, improve plants & trees health and fruit& veggies quality and protect the plants and trees against pests and diseases.
Worm and thermophilic composting
We experiment with a flow through worm casting unit as well as a thermophilic composting area to create compost of high biological quality that can feed the soil microorganisms.
Soil Food Web Laboratory
Our SFW soil microbiology laboratory allows us to assess whether a sample of soil or compost or liquid (extract, tea, IMO’s or bio fertilizers) is Biocomplete®, meaning having a sufficient biomass of all the 4 beneficial families of microorganisms to support the soil food web providing naturally soluble nutrients for the plants and protecting them against pests & diseases. Read more…
Compost extract & tea brewer
Our 60l brewer allows us to prepare enough compost extract or tea to use in the farm and for test sample applications at local farms or gardens.