The International Governance Committee (IGC) defined the city of Concepción as the venue for the event.
A new version of the World Symposium on Soil and Plants (ISSPA) will be held, this time, in our country, more specifically in the city of Concepción. This is the seventeenth version of this world-class event that will take place between Tuesday 21 and Thursday 24 in Concepción, Biobío region.
“This is an international symposium, it is an activity that is held every two years, it is a symposium that is about 40 years old, considering that it was not held during the pandemic; the last version was held in the Netherlands in 2019 and from that activity we brought the Symposium to Chile to hold it in Concepción in March this year. Technically this international symposium is to discuss "We have taken into account all the scientific and technological advances in the area of soil and plant analysis, with a focus of course on the agricultural area, but also on the environmental area, and we have tried to broaden this focus not only to the typical soil analysis, but also to microbiology, bioinputs, biostimulants, etc.," explained Rodrigo Ortega, President of the local Organizing Committee of the International Symposium on Soil and Plants.
The last symposium was held in the Netherlands in 2019 and due to the pandemic, the ISSPA for 2021 was postponed. For this year, the International Governance Committee (IGC) decided that Chile would host the seventeenth version of the event.
"This symposium will be held on the campus of the Santa María University in Concepción between March 21 and 24 of this year; we basically have two and a half days of work in the classroom and on the third day we will do a technical tour starting from the coast and reaching the Andes Mountains," Rodrigo Ortega explained.
The symposium starts on Tuesday, March 21 at 08:00 am with the accreditation process, followed by the inauguration at 09:00 am; at 10:00 am the first presentation will take place: Soil Functionality, Health and Quality, by speaker Dr Mirjam Pulleman, Senior Soil Scientist, Wageningen University and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Netherlands.
During the afternoon, Prof. Dr. Ir. Patrick du Jardin, Plant Biology & Botanical Garden, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, ULiège, Belgium will discuss the analysis and use of biostimulants and other bioproducts through his presentation entitled: “Nothing exists until it is measured: the challenge of biostimulant products”.
«Among the guests we have high-calibre speakers, such as Dr. Ratan Lal, who is the person who knows the most about climate change, soil quality, the whole way of dealing with climate change, etc. Dr. Lal was recently at the Congress of the Future via virtual means, but we convinced him to be there in person in Concepción in March», Ortega said.
In addition, topics such as soil fertility and nutrition, analysis for management, analysis and use of organic materials, among others, will be analyzed.
On the other hand, those who wish to present their research can apply through the link Papers Call for Papers – Key dates ISSPA 2021 – Chile (isspa2023.cl) until this Friday, February 10th.
The Global Symposium on Soil and Plants will be held in English, but will have simultaneous translation into Spanish.
