Alter'N and Magnum

UMTs are partnership tools between technical institutes and public research units supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and dedicated to technological research. The goal is to promote synergies between researchers and engineers on a given theme focusing on targeted operational results. ECOSYS is involved in two UMTs:

UMT Alter'N. In collaboration with Terres Inovia and the Agronomy unit, along with the mobilization of other partners (notably ITB and Arvalis), we propose UMT Alter'N (Use of alternative sources of nitrogen - legumes and organic waste products - to manage crop systems with low N losses and reduced synthetic fertilizer dependency), which started in 2015. The operational and technological purpose of this UMT is to strengthen the capacity to provide strategic advices for the insertion of leguminous plants (fixing atmospheric nitrogen) and the valorization of organic waste products in productive cropping systems. Therefore, it aims to produce references and provide knowledge and tools for the diagnosis, design, evaluation and management of cropping systems with low nitrogen losses that integrate these alternative sources of nitrogen. ECOSYS is a member of the UMT office (Sabine Houot, Jean-Louis Drouet). This structure allows strengthening of the technological partnership, valuing our products (models) and our devices for observation (SOERE PRO), experimentation and data acquisition (GHG, reactive forms of nitrogen).

UMT MAGNUM. ECOSYS, with Terres Inovia, has initiated a consortium of research units at INRA (Agronomy, SADAPT, BIOGER, Eco-Innov) and Centrale Supelec (Chair of Mathematics and Computer Science for Complexity and Systems) as well as Arvalis, to constitute UMT MAGNUM, Modeling and Digital Agriculture. The purposes of this UMT are to strengthen the modeling capabilities for cropping systems in the North of France and to encourage the use of this type of tool by agents of technical institutes for different applications, including the use of models for making tactical and strategic decisions, initial and ongoing training, the design and implementation of digital tools for pilot operations, and the use and valuation of models for longer-term needs. Amélie Mathieu (ECOSYS) is co-director of this UMT (with Xavier Pinochet from Terres Inovia). This UMT is being implemented in 2018 and will consolidate our interactions with different partners for production of operational versions of our ecophysiological and ecosystems models.