Associate Professor of Department of Ecology and Environmental Technologies, SSU, D.Sc. Yelizaveta Chernysh and PhD student of the department Viktoriia Chubur together with colleagues of the Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University, Professor Mykola Kharitonov, Natalia Honchar, Iryna Rula, Svitlana Lemishko and Olena Zolotovska, took part in a scientific internship at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague during the week from August 30th till September 6th 2021, within the framework of Czech project “Strengthening scientific capacities and cooperation of Ukrainian universities in AgriSciences”.
The main purpose of the visit was the implementation of tasks within the framework of joint research projects. Visits to laboratories, research institutes and working meetings were planned to discuss further steps for collaborative research and cooperation.
The visit began with a meeting with Dr Hynek Roubík, program coordinator and group leader of the biogas research team at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. Hynek Roubík, together with Yelizaveta Chernysh, is the research supervisor of graduate student Viktoriia Chubur. Dr Roubík acquainted the group of Ukrainian researchers with the departments and laboratory facilities of the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences and also described the concept of a sustainable Faculty building. There were also a number of meetings with representatives of Dr Rubik’s Biogas Research Team and a representative of the Tropical Biodiversity Research Group, Ingrid Melniková, who gave a tour of the laboratory, that focused on plant breeding via in vitro cultures and specialized on somatic hybridization. The university has its own arboretum with working scientific plots and a botanical garden. Also, many exotic species for our latitudes is cultivated in the tropical and subtropical greenhouses, and they were presented by the head of the botanical garden Anežka Daníčková.
The visit to Prague was full of opportunities to establish partnerships for future research with research institutes and laboratories. Our colleagues discussed the topic of waste anaerobic digestion with Czech colleagues regarding methods for laboratory experiments at the Rese Research Institute of Agricultural Engineering. They also had the opportunity to attend the conference “Conference: Pathways into a Sustainable Future” held on 2-3 September with the support of the German Embassy in the Czech Republic. The decision on the European “Green Deal” and the current crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic provoked new discussions on more sustainable lifestyles and technological development within the conference panel sessions.
One of the main types of carried out work was a field trip to an agricultural biogas plant near the town of Mělník. Since 2012 agricultural production facility Zemědělská Cítov As operates a biogas plant with an electrical capacity of 620 kW, which supplies electricity and heat to the chicken farm, and the produced heat is also used to dry crop production. The electricity produced is also provided to the distribution system.
The visit to G. Masaryk Water Research Institute ended the scientific internship in Prague. Lada Stejskalová, representative of the Branch of Water Technology and Wastes acquainted with the main areas of work of the Institute and the laboratories where equipment for local wastewater treatment systems is tested. During the visit, it was important to discuss the possibilities of cooperation of the Research Institute with the International Innovation and Applied Center “Aquatic Artery”, headed by Yelizaveta Chernysh.
