The market access in China seems to be easier today compared with 20 years ago when everything was still unknown and somehow “adventurous”. You have nowadays numerous flights; good accommodation and our partners speak fluently English.
Nevertheless, it is our partners in China that enable the access in the market and react clever to the changes and demands in the market. It is today even more difficult to sell imported technique in China, as on the one hand there is still a very good demand for new innovative products in our field of environmental monitoring. But today we do not just sell any more one product but a whole solution. Also local suppliers further develop their products. Also for small and medium sized companies like UGT cooperation that goes beyond sales relation gets into focus. It is therefore necessary that the partner in China can provide service and information to the customers, joint presentations get more and more important. We thank our Chinese partners for the continuant and trustful relations over the year and the open atmosphere in the talks. We used the opportunity to meet our partners. We visited customers together to go into brainstorming to find new solutions.

Chinese universities have a high standard and we thank our partners for the invitations and organization of workshops in the scientific research institutes and universities in Beijing and Guangzhou. It was a pleasure to exchange opinion with the Chinese scientists. Although there are prognosis that because of global trade challenges the growth in China will not continue in 2-digit rates, there are still about 6% economic growth in China. If UGT together with the Chinese partners put the right measurements there is still room to grow together and further develop the business relations.
We look forward to a successful 2019 together with our Chinese business partners.

Visit UGT’s youtube channel www.youtube.com/user/UGTgermany and learn about the use of UGT products. Several video tutorials are available. Actually the tutorial for the installation of UGT’s Ready-To-Go lysimeters is uploaded:


 

We are happy to announce a new lysimeter project. The lysimeters will be used to study arable land with different irrigation strategies. The most common irrigation strategy in this region is waste water irrigation.
To study the effects of different irrigation strategies, 6 undisturbed monoliths will be excavated, on a traditionally managed site. During the experiment, 3 lysimeters will be irrigated with waste water and 3 lysimeters with cleaned water.

This study should answer the following questions:

• Are there any effects on the soil properties?
• Are there differences between the different management types /treatments?
• If irrigation with waste water is a problem or the soil can buffer effects by cleaning mechanisms?
• Are there any differences in the composition of the leachate between the two treatments?
• …

The results should help to develop suitable irrigation strategies.
The managing director of UGT Dr. Sascha Reth visited the campus of the UNAM. There he met the director of the Geological Institute Dr. Ricardo Barragan Manzo and the project leaders Dr. Christina Siebe and Dr. Blanca Prado.

In order to find the most suitable place for the installation of the lysimeter basement, the study area was visited and all possibilities discussed.

The next day we visited the fields near Tlahuelilpan where the monoliths are taken for the experiment. Soil samples were taken to characterize them.

The researchers of UNAM and UGT are looking forward to the first lysimeter station in Central America.

Visit UGT and Soilmoisture at the ASA & CSSA Annual Convention in Baltimore at booth No.101. The latest developments in the topic of lysimeter and measuring equipment on the subject of “measure the fullrange” will be presented together with our partner Soilmoisture.

Here, the further development of the ku-pF with the Full Range tensiometers up to a measuring range of 15 bar (pF 4.2) is the highlight.

Furthermore, the ready-to-go lysimeter can be viewed fully configured. Special requirements can be discussed directly on the object.
 


Soilmoisture presents the new Handitrace which revolutionizes the TDR measurement. In addition, the special ceramics for any application and soil hydraulic sensors for the field and the laboratory at the booth are visible.

The team of Soilmoisure by Alan Farsad and Walter Peterson and Sascha Reth from UGT looking forward to discus your projects and special need.

This congress was jointly held at the University of Lorraine, Nancy, France on October 22-25, 2018. Professor Marie-Odile Simonnot was like in 2012 conferences’ chair. Thanks of the great engagement of the colleagues of the University of Lorraine, GISFI also in this year the conference was a success. More than 30 universities from all over the world formed the international committee that organised this conference. In altogether 11 sessions the scientists presented from 9.00 a.m in the morning until 6.00 p.m in the evening their scientific results concerning the important topics in the field of phyto-or bioremediation or remediation of groundwater and sediment. Risk Assessment and also modelling and the presentation of new investigation tools played an important role in the discussions.
Session 6 on Wednesday, October 24^th dealt with the mechanism transport and mobilization and transfer in water from contaminated soils and measures for soil remediation. UGT was invited to give a presentation in this international conference.


Sascha Reth gave a presentation with the title:  “weighable lysimeters – a perfect tool to observe phytoremediation processes in undisturbed soil columns”. It was great to hear in the presentations of GISFI given by Marie-Odile Simonnot and Pierre Faure that many of the  scientific tasks have been successfully resolved with column experiments by the help of UGT lysimeters.

Moreover Sascha Reth and Kerstin Thomsen used the opportunity to present new equipment of UGT together with our french agent SDEC who was represented by Adrien Maslard. The talks about new projects with our friends and partners from University Lorraine and GISFI in the margin of the conference were important milestones to further develop the cooperation and plan our next joint steps.
Merci et à la prochaine fois à Nancy en France!
 

Lysimeter successfully installed

UGT GmbH is a part of an international working team that consisted of scientists from Kostanay State Pedagogical Institute, Altai State University, “AMAZONE” Kasachstan, Leibniz University Hannover, University of Halle, UFZ Halle, in the project ReKKS.

The task of the UGT was the development and fabrication of a weighable lysimeter station that operates during the whole year. Plant-accessible water is the limiting factor for agricultural yields in the steppe zone of Kazakhstan, especially in the light of the ongoing climate change with an increase in the mean annual temperatures along with more infrequent precipitation events in the study area.

This week we have successfully completed the installation of the lysimeter station. The weighable lysimeter station consisting of two gravitation lysimeters. Quantitative and qualitative parameters of the soil water budget will be recorded for different soil management systems.

Two different undisturbed soil monoliths (steppe vs. farmland lysimeter) were excavated from the site of investigation and placed in the lysimeter vessels for further research.

The installed sensor technology works very well. First measured values already show a clear difference between the steppe lysimeter and the farmland lysimeter. The possibility of remote data transmission represents a major contribution to the success of the project.
We would like to thank Tobias Meinel, Olga, Sharnabek and Yevgeni Pelzer and his team for the support during the installation of the lysimeter station.
We hope for further good cooperation. The next maintenance will take place in one year and we are looking forward to seeing you again in Kazakhstan.
 

“Innovations for Sustainable Use of Agricultural Resources and Climate-adaption in the Arid Steppes of Kazakhstan and Southwestern Siberia (ReKKS)”

On 26.10.2018 the ceremony “90 years of research in Müncheberg” took place in the church of Müncheberg. The “research city Müncheberg” is one of the most important locations for agricultural science in Germany.
Since 1992,  “Umwelt-Geräte-Technik GmbH” (UGT) has also been part of this “research city Müncheberg”.

The two-hour ceremony was opened by Cornelia Rosenberg. The focus of research in Müncheberg has changed, as Cornelia Rosenberg, Administrative Director at ZALF, explains in her opening speech: from maximizing yields in the GDR era to implementing more sustainability in land use. Afterwards, Dr. Claus Dalchow, long-time research associate at ZALF, reviewed 90 years of research at Müncheberg in a historical outline. This was followed by greetings from Gernot Schmidt, district administrator of the Märkisch-Oderland, and from Dr. Uta Barkusky, mayor of Müncheberg.

This year, the awarding of the research prize was integrated into the celebrations. Dr. Jana Zscheischler receives the Müncheberg Award. The award honors her work on the problem of “transdisciplinary research” for sustainable land use, which relates to the cooperation between basic research and practice in land-use science. Prof. Dr. Ernst Berg, University of Bonn, addresses this topic in his speech “Challenges of Agricultural Research” and emphasized the special importance of the research field and its contribution to overcoming the major social challenges: reducing climate and environmental impacts and implementing more sustainability in land use and the food industry.
For 26 years UGT has been supporting science in these challenges. As a direct neighbour, UGT supports these processes through the development and production of environmental equipment technology with a high innovative character and high quality. The close cooperation with leading research institutions is the key to innovative solutions in the field of environmental equipment technology.

In an additional exhibition, the key players of the research city were presented in more detail: among others the ZALF and Senckenberg German Entomological Institute Müncheberg, the LEFL – test station for fruit growing, UGT Umwelt-Geräte-Technik GmbH and agrathaer GmbH, which is mainly concerned with the transfer of scientific results into practice.


Dr. Seyfarth co-founder of the UGT presented the measuring technology of the beginnings up to today. Mr. Seyfarth gave the visitors the opportunity to get an insight into the development stages of the Tensio 100 – mobile field tensiometer and the PL 300.
Further information:
Press release Zalf
Press release LELF – Obstbauversuchsanstalt
MOZ newspaper article
 

– for us a modern way to do business with our chinese partners –

A greener future in China is a goal of the government of China. It is therefore that official authorities and universities are well aware of the challenges still to be resolved in this country.
We are proud to announce that by the help of our agent “Beijing waterland” we can install 3 double lysimeter stations in China.

The final destination is:
Fengqiu Agro-ecological Experiment Station in Fengqiu county, Xinxiang city, Henan province
First our stations will cross the ocean and travel by ship to Nanjing!

The new silk road is synonymous for us to combine Europe and Asia – in this sense to protect our environment. We are proud to be a partner in this process and be able to monitor with our equipment currant status to provide scientists with the necessary environmental data.



So “safe journey” for our lysimeters !
UGT is looking forward to the installation in Henan province.