Paludicscout

Background

Raising the water table in agriculturally used peatlands requires adapting farming systems. In order to be able to drive on wet and deep peatland soils, for example for mowing and harvesting, it is important that the machines only exert a low ground pressure to prevent damage to the sward. This can be achieved with adapted grassland techniques or specialised machinery. These include vehicles with caterpillar vehicle technology or tractors with dual tyres.
However, in practice most available are prototypes rather than non-series machines leading to high investment costs for farmers and also to challenges. This is because finding suitable equipment or contractors remains a major hurdle for land users so far. Despite extensive scientific and grey literature on adapted harvesting machinery, this information is hardly accessible to agricultural practitioners. Furthermore, there is currently no central platform that provides information on specific machinery for paludiculture cultivation.

The PaludiZentrale addresses this gap with www.paludiScout.de, an online information platform for specialised technology for harvesting machinery used on wet and rewetted peatlands. This platform enables users to find appropriate machinery, dealers, developers and contractors, compare products and access relevant technical information.

Further Information

The project Paludiscout is part of the PaludiZentrale. Further information on the PaludiZentrale can be found on the website of the Landscape Economics Working Group (University of Greifswald): Information and contact persons for the work packages (WP) 6-9 of the Landscape Economics Working Group.