Glancing into the crystal ball

With EiLT, the Thünen Institute is launching an experimental landscape laboratory at its Trenthorst site, in which future land utilisation systems will be developed and tested.

The agricultural and food systems of the future will look different to those of today. But under whichconditions will fields and meadows be remodelled in the coming years? How can soil be used optimally and still be healthy and rich in species? How can farmers generate additional income?

The Thünen Institute's EiLT landscape laboratory in Trenthorst is dedicated to these socially relevant questions in order to develop utilisation concepts and innovations that are sustainable for both agricultural practice and society. EiLT stands for ‘Experimental Interdisciplinary Landscape Laboratory Trenthorst for Research, Development, Testing, and Demonstration of Land Utilisation Systems of the Future’.

Eight experimental fields will initially be realised on an area of around 600 hectares. We are focussing on experiments that cannot be carried out in other landscape laboratories or experimental stations, or only to a limited extent. Thünen researchers are working on an interdisciplinary basis on the individual experimental fields. All projects will fulfil the requirements arising from the scientific work of the Thünen Institute of Organic Farming. Some experiments are in the style of a demonstration project, some test what has been devised at the desk in practice. Others are set up as classic experiments with a statistically analysable design.