Preparations for Slovenia’s 2016-2021 'Water Management Plan' confirmed that three of the country’s underground water bodies were in a poor state due to high concentrations of nitrates and the pesticide atrazine leaching from intensive livestock production and the overuse of fertiliser on plant crops.

The EIP Water project focused on how to process excess manure and slurry from livestock production to reduce their environmental impact. However, as the available practices and technologies had yet to be tested and demonstrated in Slovenia, practical demonstrations were needed to help encourage the uptake of mitigation opportunities.

The main aims of this project were to share good practices and develop fertiliser regimes that reduce the leaching of nutrients into water.

This project identified suitable technologies and agricultural practices for reducing nitrogen emissions. These were introduced on demonstration farms.

Throughout the project, regular monitoring of nitrogen emissions was carried out with the help of small lysimeters installed directly under agricultural land. The data gathered by the lysimeters in the test fields enabled the project team to quantify the nutrient load in water samples taken from different areas of agricultural activity – each under different agricultural cultures and fertilisation regimes - at different times throughout the year.

The second segment of the project explored good practices in using water-friendly organic fertilisers in agricultural, horticultural, viticultural and hop production. Having confirmed that the solid phase of slurry produced by pigs is a suitable raw material for making pellets for organic fertilisation of agricultural land, the project team set out to test suitable additives for producing pellets. These products are known to have a lower impact on underground and surface water, and livestock manure processing itself also has the potential to become an additional source of revenue for larger livestock farms.

During the project's demonstration phase, the team was able to compare nitrogen leaching from irrigated agricultural areas with nitrogen from non-irrigated agricultural areas. The team also found that composting the solid phase of livestock manure with the liquid phase of the slurry is possible. This enables a reduction in the use of liquid animal manure on agricultural land, which is known to have a much greater potential for leaching nitrates into the water than is the case with solid organic fertilisers.

Extensive educational and promotional activities were carried out with a specific focus on developing skills and sharing knowledge with the owners and managers of agricultural holdings.

Led by the Geological Survey of Slovenia, the other partners of this EIP Operational Group were the demonstration farms (farm Ihan, the Slemenjak Skoke livestock farm, the Rančigaj Gomilsko hop farm, the Vrabec Pliskovica vineyard and the Zatler Kleče vegetable farm); the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia; the Slovenian Institute of Hop Research and Brewing; the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana; the ‘Grm Novo mesto’ University Centre; and the Maribor Institute of Agriculture and Forestry.