At 7.30 am our breakfast was served, we had to make sure to be ready with all our luggage at 8 am so we could take the metro to the university.
Once we we're at the University, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Maria Jesús Villamide, who is the International Offices manager, presented the university, her experience on an internship, why we should partake in them and agriculture in Spain.
She had gone on an internship to a dairy farm in Denmark when she was still a student and learned lots on the culture and way of farming.
We learned that the most important crops in Spain are citrus, grapes (wine) and olives. The biggest animal production is pigs (maybe for the Jamon Serrano?)
After this informative presentation we got to visit the practical fields. Here the students and staff practice their skills and have experiments. It's 1.8 hectares big and has many different facilities. There is an orchard with fruit and olive trees where the soil is infected with fungi and they have to fix this problem in order to be able to plant a higher diversity of trees. They have all of the European olive tree varieties.
On the picture on the left you can see one of the old greenhouses. This is how they used to look like. The windows receive lots of sun from the south and are being shaded from the cold north.
On the right you can see, what the guide described as, the shit zone. This is where they compost the animal faeces, leftover greens, ... They use open row composting. This is when you have a layer of greens and a layer of browns, after repeating a couple of times and letting the pile rest. It is then mixed and put into rows. They check the temperature so it isn't higher than 70 degrees Celsius or lower than 50 degrees. The rows are turned periodically to ensure good oxygen flow. After 20 days the compost moves onto the next row and after this it's usable as compost.
They also use worm composting on their waste.
These fields are used for ecological farming. There's 4 zones where they work in different ecological ways. They had to have paths between the plots and make the plots not to wide so you don't have to step on them. This is so the earth doesn't compact too much. If it's too compacted you'd have to till the soil which is what they try to avoid as much as possible.
As for the irrigation of the field they have this pond. In winter they fill it with water from the river and in the summer they can use the well they have. On the fields there are also facilities for animals. They have lamb, pigs and chickens. Since the 2013 animal welfare law, all animal production companies have to comply and have the animal quarters on top and catch all their faeces down below where it can be treated. Other parts are: foraging part, insect growing part (checking the insects for resistance), alfalfa fields, grapevines (they use the grapes to make wine on the university).
After the general visit, professor Santiago Moreno, showed us the greenhouse and all the plants inside of it. We got to taste and smell lots of them while they informed us of their use, origin, smell, taste, ... The title of the workshop was: "Approaching 20 plant species with (good) Taste and (fine) Smell".
First of all we have Chia (Salvia hispanica), they are grown in Mexico and together with Amarant and Corn were the major food source for Mexicans before the Spanish conquered them. If you add water to chia seeds and stir it forms a gel. This gel releases glucose bit by bit and tastes quite nice with some jam. It has loads of Omega 3, calcium iron, ...
The second plant is ginger (Zíngiber officinale), which is used to marinate food or as medicine. It is a plant that stays for multiple years.
The third plant, tumeric (Curcuma longa), has the same uses as the ginger plant. The underground stem is very orange inside which is why this plant is used as food colouring.
Kumquat (Fortunella margarita), number 4, can be eaten whole. Even the skin can be eaten and it's the sweetest part of all.
Number 5, the camphor tree (Cinamomon camphora), smells like minty tobacco.
The 6th plant, Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) is a substitute for sugar but it's listed as a new food. This makes it so that the plants can't be grown here but the pirified pure compound is allowed. In Japan about 30% of their sweetness is from stevia.
Number 7 is sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) produces more than 80% of the worlds sugar. In Europe we use sugar beets as well though. It tastes very sweet of course.
The 8th plant is thyme (Thymus) and is used a lot in cooking.
Number 9 is winter savory (Satureja intricata), this smells nice and they produce essential oils from it. It's from the same family as thyme.
The 10th plant, Carob (Ceratonia siliqua), aka algarrobo is used in ice cream to make it thicker. It's also horse food and way back in the day was used for soup.
The 11th one, Curryplant (Helichrysum italicum), is not used for cooking since it's not real curry.
The 12th, vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides) has no smell and has the nickname golden grass because of its looks. The roots however smell quite strongly like perfume and are used in perfume as well.
Number 13, Aztec marigold (Tagetes minuta), is used for cooking, comes from Bolivia.
Plant 14, spearmint (Mentha spicata) smells like mint of course.
Number 15, lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) comes from paraguay.
Number 16, lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora), smells a bit like the lemon grass and is being called that as well but the morphology is totally different.
The 17th plant was shell-ginger (Alpinia zerumbet) can be used for making tamales. This is a mexican dish where they use leave to cook their meat, spicy saus, corn flour in. Cooking with these leaves gives it that extra nice smell.
Plant number 18 was Bolivian coriander (Porophyllum ruderale), which everyone knows.
The previous to last plant was sesame (Sesamum indicum), see the picture on the right, from where the sesame seeds come.
And finally the last plant was hop (Humulus lupulus) which is used in the brewing proces. The female flower gives off yellow dust which gives the beer it's bitterness.
After smelling/tasting the plants we had a quiz where we could check how good our olfactory memory was. Could we remember which plant had which smell? I know I could not.
This was a really interesting visit where we learned a lot. Thanks again to the university and the professor for taking the time to show us around.
We had pizza for lunch whilst sitting in the sun in the university and packed our bags for the trip to Toledo. Whilst waiting for the bus we could take a look at the IAAS Spain room which is filled with flags from all over the world.
The bus arrived and we started our trip to Toledo.
On the way there we stopped at an irrigation farm which had more than 100 hectares. They plant garlic, white poppy, triticale, leguminose, ... The water they need for irrigation they take from lake Tajo. There are 3 ExPro places opening up here soon. The interns will take care of their newest project: forrest fruit and an orchard. If you're interested go check out the ExPro page on the IAAS World website!
We then finally arrived at the place we are staying at in Toledo, El Casar de la Inesa. It's a huge place with a swimming pool, tennis court, football field, squach field, windmill, fountain, dorms, common room,... We had scrambled eggs with tuna and zucchini soup for dinner and surrounded by beautiful nature and quiet we had a game night (or like EB, RB, ITC worked) and finished off the day.
