International Symposium on Organic Waste to Horticultural Resource

This Symposium on “Organic waste to horticultural resource” will be held in Brisbane during the IHC2014 Congress (17-22 August 2014). The impetus to transform waste from food, agricultural, construction, water and indeed horticultural industries into viable commercial products has increased markedly in the last three decades. In Europe, pressures to reduce peat as a growing medium in some countries has led to uptake of renewable resources such as bark, coir and green compost: all formerly regarded as wastes. Indeed some materials, notably coir are now recognised as highly valued substrate constituents and production contributes significantly to the local economy in parts of India and Sri Lanka. Challenges have intensified with biomass demands for some of these materials notably bark, both in Europe and the USA. Composted wastes of plant, animal, and even human origin are now widely used in soil amendment and as components of substrates for plant growth. Also within the realm of plant cultivation, reuse of waste water from for example, fish ponds, has formed the basis of Aquaponics systems in several parts of the world. Organic wastes may also find other uses in industry: pigments may be extracted from waste fruit peels and used as 憂atural� dyeing agents: energy can be produced from anaerobic digestion of glasshouse crop waste. Horticulture may offer solutions to the disposal of many organic wastes, but emphasis must be placed on quality and consistency. The success of products and processes developed through years of often painstaking research is often assured only through complementary rigorous quality control procedures.