COST Action FA1305 ‘The EU Aquaponics Hub – Realising Sustainable Integrated Fish and
Vegetable Production for the EU’ is holding a competition to award funding to two PhD
students or Postdocs to attend the 3rd Management Committee meeting at the University of Gran Canaria, Spain, 22-24 April 2015.

Applicants should send a CV and a one page  letter of motivation outlining what they would hope to gain from attending the meeting, and what they would be able to contribute.  The deadline for applications is 15 March 2015. Further information can be found in the link below.

Competition flyer

Photographer: Erling Stubhaug 

The EcoPonics group was well presented at the Aquaponics seminar held at Bioforsk in Grimstad, Norway. Bioforsk has built an aquaponics pilot unit and their researchers are testing cold water fish species, brown trout and rainbow trout together with different salad species in the hydroponics unit. The seminar was very successful gathering young people, researchers and people from the different industries, suppliers of equipment for both aquaculture and growers and people from aquaculture and horticulture businesses.

Seminar program

The first aquaponics session of Aquaculture Europe received a lot of interest. All the seats were taken, and people stood at the rear of the hall.
The EcoPonics group had three oral presentations at the aquaponics session of Aquculture Europe 14 held in San Sebastian in Basque country; AQUAPONICS AND THE PROSPECTS OF LARGE SCALE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION, IMPLEMENTING COMMERCIAL AQUAPONICS IN EUROPE – FIRST RESULTS FROM THE ECOINNOVATION PROJECT ECOPONICS and MODELLING THE SYMBIOTIC EFFECTS IN AQUAPONICS.

After the aquaponics seminar at Tknika the group visited Breens aquaponics pilot station. Breen is currently testing a range of different plants. All of them are growing well. The fish species used is tilapia. Breen also uses the pilot station for vocational training of young people and unemployed people in close collaboration with Tknika.

An aquaponics seminar was held at Tknika (www.tknika.es) with participation of aquaponics researchers from two Leonardo funded projects; AQUAVET (http://project.zhaw.ch/de/science/aqua-vet.html) and EUROPONICS (http://aquaponics.is/ecoponics/?page_id=12), young researchers from Breen and Tknika and Mr. Charlie Shultz from Lethbridge College in Canada.

After fruitful days attending the ESF and COST meetings on aquaponics at the University of Greenwich the group visited Thanet Earth (http://www.thanetearth.com/) and learned about their hydroponics system. Thanet Earth is the UK´s largest and most high-tech greenhouse complex presently including four greenhouses growing tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Thanet Earth has followed the development in aquaponics closely.

ESF and COST meetings were held 1.-4. September at the University of Greenwich.
The future of aquaponics was discussed thoroughly at the ESF and COST meetings hosted by the University of Greenwich. Four internationally renowned pioneers in aquaponics were invited and presented their work on aquaponics; Dr. James Rakocy the aquaponics pioneer and designer of the UVI-system from the University of Virgin Island, Dr. Edoardo Pantanella one of the authors to FAO´s report on aquaponics (http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4021e/index.html ) , Dr. Wilson Lennard from Australia and Mr. Charlie Shultz aquaponics researcher at Lethbridge College in Canada.

Today we got a visit from Smáraskóli and representatives from Kópavogsbær municipality. All visitors got basil and mint to take home.

This beautiful tilapia couple from our office system is now preparing their nest. Hopefully good news soon.

This morning we harvested basil and mint from our systems. The leaves look excellent – big and beatiful.