Agronickel
FACCE SURPLUS First call, 2015
Total costs*
1,568,000 €Total requested funding*
589,000 €Duration
Feb. 1, 2016 — Jan. 1, 2019Core theme
Addressed policies
Coordinator
Participating organisations
- French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), France
- Agricultural University of Tirana (UBT), Albania
- French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France
- Jagiellonian University (JU), Poland
- Microhumus, France
- Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
- Technological Educational Institute of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (TEI EMT), Greece
- Université de Lorraine (UL), France
- University of Florence (UniFi), Italy
- University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria
About
European ultramafic soils are rather unfertile, although sometimes still used by agriculture, mainly in the Balkans, and contain high concentrations of metals as well as deficiency of major nutrient (P and K).
As a nature-based solution (NBS), the idea of phytomining metals emerged in the 90s and the goal was to cultivate plants able to accumulate trace metals from metal-rich soils and transport them to the shoots, which could then be harvested as a bio-ore to recover highly valuable metals, e.g. nickel (Ni). This concept has evolved as an integrated chain from soil management to production of bio-sourced refined metal products.
AGRONICKEL aims to implement agroecosystems which can lead to better soil resource efficiency and to offer a fully integrated, new agromining agriculture that could cover thousands of km2 in Europe and benefit local communities with sustainable rural development. Traditional agronomy has already been developed for the Ni-hyperaccumulator Alyssum murale (=Odontarrhena chalcidica).
It is needed a more resource-friendly agriculture: evaluation of all potential crops among Ni-hyperaccumulators and long-term effect on soil fertility and biota; optimisation of ecosystem services and of energy and metal recovery; and re-use of the by-products of the different stages of metal recovery.
Results
- New species/taxa have been elucidated in the Balkans. The hyperaccumulating Brassicaceae that can be of interest for agromining are tetraploid species (e.g. Odontarrhena chalcidica, Bornmuellera emarginata, B. tymphaea).
- Nickel availability in ultramafic soils seems to trigger the potential agromining yield. When it is non-limiting, the best fertilisation pattern is organic manure (vs. NPK-nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium). Density, harvesting pattern have been optimised.
- Inoculation of plants with PGPR (plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) can improve plant growth and Ni uptake by a significant factor but the associations are to be created with locally adapted bacteria.
- Co-cropping with legumes can result in a significant yield improvement, although some hyperaccumulator suffers from competition with co-cropped plants.
- Yields of 150–200 kg Ni ha-1 per year can now be obtained. The energy recovery yield of ground biomass is substancial and compatible with EU regulations and the by-products generated by ash washing have characteristics that are compatible with EU regulations on fertilisers (K fertiliser).
- Effects of newly implemented practices (organic fertilisation, co-cropping) have a strong positive effect on soil biological fertility (including soil structure and enzyme functions) and biodiversity,
- Some Ecosystem Services such as Pollination Activity are clearly enhanced whereas the honey produced does not seem to present toxicological risks for consumers.
Related FACCE-JPI funded projects:
Publications:
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Bani, Aida & Echevarria, Guillaume 2019, Can organic amendments replace chemical fertilizers in nickel agromining cropping systems in Albania?
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Bani, Aida et al. 2020, Element Case Studies in the Temperate/Mediterranean Regions of Europe: Nickel
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Bettarini, Isabella et al. 2021, Diversity of Ni growth response and accumulation in Central-Eastern Mediterranean Odontarrhena (Brassicaceae) populations on and off serpentine sites
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Bettarini, Isabella et al. 2019, Unravelling soil and plant metal relationships in Albanian nickel hyperaccumulators in the genus Odontarrhena (syn. Alyssum sect. Odontarrhena, Brassicaceae)
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Cassayre, L. et al. 2020, Combustion of nickel hyperaccumulator plants investigated by experimental and thermodynamic approaches
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Cecchi, Lorenzo et al. 2018, The genus Odontarrhena (Brassicaceae) in Albania: Taxonomy and Nickel accumulation in a critical group of metallophytes from a major serpentine hot-spot
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Cecchi, Lorenzo et al. 2020, Odontarrhena stridii (Brassicaceae), a new Nickel-hyperaccumulating species from mainland Greece
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Coppi, Andrea et al. 2020, Population Genetics of Odontarrhena (Brassicaceae) from Albania: The Effects of Anthropic Habitat Disturbance, Soil, and Altitude on a Ni-Hyperaccumulator Plant Group from a Major Serpentine Hotspot
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Domka, Agnieszka et al. 2020, Transcriptome Response of Metallicolous and a Non-Metallicolous Ecotypes of Noccaea goesingensis to Nickel Excess
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Hazotte, Claire et al. 2020, Evaluation of the performance of nickel hyperaccumulator plants as combustion fuel
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Hopewell, Tyler et al. 2021, Trichome Biomineralization and Soil Chemistry in Brassicaceae from Mediterranean Ultramafic and Calcareous Soils
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Kidd, Petra Susan et al. 2018, Developing Sustainable Agromining Systems in Agricultural Ultramafic Soils for Nickel Recovery
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Laubie, Baptiste et al. 2020, Processing of Hyperaccumulator Plants to Nickel Products
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Lopez, Séverine et al. 2019, Community diversity and potential functions of rhizosphere-associated bacteria of nickel hyperaccumulators found in Albania
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Morel, Jean Louis et al. 2020, Conclusions and Outlook for Agromining
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Pardo, Tania et al. 2018, Assessing the agromining potential of Mediterranean nickel-hyperaccumulating plant species at field-scale in ultramafic soils under humid-temperate climate
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Saad, R. F. et al. 2021, A two-year field study of nickel-agromining using Odontarrhena chalcidica co-cropped with a legume on an ultramafic soil: temporal variation in plant biomass, nickel yields and taxonomic and bacterial functional diversity
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Saad, Ramez F. et al. 2018, Influence of new agromining cropping systems on soil bacterial diversity and the physico-chemical characteristics of an ultramafic soil
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Saad, Ramez F. et al. 2018, Soil microbial and Ni-agronomic responses to Alyssum murale interplanted with a legume
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Saad, Ramez F. et al. 2018, Influence of new agromining cropping systems on soil bacterial diversity and the physico-chemical characteristics of an ultramafic soil
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Saad, Ramez Farajallah et al. 2017, Crop rotation associating a legume and the nickel hyperaccumulator Alyssum murale improves the structure and biofunctioning of an ultramafic soil
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Touceda-González, M. et al. 2018, Bacterial communities in the rhizosphere of different populations of the Ni-hyperaccumulator Alyssum serpyllifolium and the metal-excluder Dactylis glomerata growing in ultramafic soils
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Ważny, Rafał et al. 2021, The effect of endophytic fungi on growth and nickel accumulation in Noccaea hyperaccumulators
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Ważny, Rafał et al. 2021, Phytohormone based biostimulant combined with plant growth promoting endophytic fungus enhances Ni phytoextraction of Noccaea goesingensis
*At the time of the proposal. Please consider this data as an accurate estimate; it may vary during the project’s lifespan.
Total costs include in kind contribution by grant holders and can therefore be higher than the total requested funding.