Catalogue of Infrastructures and Facilities

Fondazione Edmund Mach (FEM) is an international research centre, a technical and vocational agricultural school, and a technology transfer centre that carries out service and consulting activities in the area. It has an experimental farm with plots located in various locations throughout the province, expanding the possibilities for research, experimentation, and teaching. FEM has been operating for 150 years to support agriculture and the environment of the territory while trying to meet new challenges. The campus consists of a 14-hectare area in San Michele all'Adige, equipped with laboratories, greenhouses, and classrooms, plus 120 hectares of cultivated land and 65 hectares of forest and meadow.

Facility

Smart vineyard

In 2021, an experimental vineyard dedicated to precision agriculture was built within the campus of the Fondazione Edmund Mach at the “Molini” location, which will host innovative research and experimentation activities in the field of digital agriculture in the coming years.

The vineyard 4.0 was developed to facilitate installation, powering, and data transmission by prototypes developed both by FEM and by national or international companies and research organisations. It features grid connection, low-voltage power lines, and WiFi and LoRaWAN coverage for receiving information via long-distance radio signals from soil, plant, and environmental data collection and transmission systems. Since no photovoltaic panels, batteries, or modems are required, the size and consequently the footprint of the acquisition systems are very small. This minimises their impact on the daily crop management.

Facility

Microvinification cellar

By examining key molecules and phenomena that influence the sensory quality of wine, the centre supports advanced oenological and viticultural research. Customised musts and wines are produced to align with specific experimental goals, enabling detailed chemical and sensory analyses. The insights gained are actively shared with the wider production community through technical publications and dedicated oenological assessments, fostering innovation and quality improvement in the wine industry.

The facility offers, on behalf of third parties or as a scientific collaboration with industrial and research partners, the study of technologically inducible variability during the different stages of vinification in relation to molecules or phenomena with the capacity to impact wine from a qualitative sensory point of view.

Musts and wines are obtained according to procedures adapted to be functional to the objectives of the various oenological and viticultural-agronomic experiments, as well as oeno-chemical and sensory evaluations. Depending on the type of activity and the objectives, the knowledge acquired is transferred to the production fabric through the dissemination of the results with technical and scientific articles and through the company's own oenological assessment activities.

Facility

Grapevine collections

The ex situ germplasm collection includes more than 2,000 genotypes (unique genetic profiles), represented by 1-20 accessions per genotype.

To support research and breeding efforts, FEM is developing the FEMVitisDB, a comprehensive genetic and phenotypic database that catalogues detailed profiles for each accession. Complementing this, the facility is equipped with advanced resources for plant breeding and resistance phenotyping, including large greenhouses, tunnels, growth chambers, and mini-greenhouses with controlled environmental conditions to facilitate studies on diseases like downy and powdery mildew.

Accessions differ according to their origin and/or by distinctive phenotypic characters (e.g., colour of the berry). The FEMVitisDB is being developed to make the list of genotypes present in the FEM grapevine germplasm collection available for consultation. The database collects the genetic profiles and phenotypic characteristics of each accession. - Equipment for plant breeding and resistance phenotyping. We have two large greenhouses and tunnels for plant breeding, as well as growth chambers and mini-greenhouses at controlled temperatures and humidity to carry out artificial infections with downy and powdery mildew.

Facility

Aquaculture and Hydrobiology