Workshop Agenda
The Workshop will be held on the 22nd of October at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek Hall
Danijel Jug is a Full Professor with tenure at the Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek, University of Osijek. He currently holds the management position of Vice-Dean for Business Organization and Investment Management. His research and teaching activities focus on sustainable soil management, conservation agriculture, soil tillage, and climate change in agriculture. His most significant scientific achievements are related to a multidisciplinary approach to conservation tillage systems and their effects on the biological, chemical, and physical properties of soil; the development of crop and soil management systems under specific agroecological conditions; and the adaptation of crop production to climate change. He has published more than 200 scientific papers, 7 university textbooks, and over 300 professional articles, and has participated in more than 40 scientific research projects. He is President of the Croatian Soil Tillage Research Organization, President-Elect of the International Soil and Tillage Research Organization, Secretary of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and a member or president of several international professional and scientific associations.
Climate change is increasingly reshaping agricultural production through rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, more frequent droughts, and more frequent and severe weather extremes. At the same time, soil degradation, declining soil organic matter, and reduced water availability further increase the vulnerability of agricultural systems. The response to climate change therefore cannot be based on isolated measures, but requires an integrated approach combining adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable soil management. The transition towards more resilient agriculture should focus on maintaining soil health, improving water-use efficiency, increasing soil organic carbon, and reducing unnecessary soil disturbance. Conservation agriculture, diversified crop rotations, cover crops, crop residue retention and management, and site-specific management practices can contribute to greater production stability while reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture — though effectiveness depends on local agroecological conditions and the capacity to integrate scientific knowledge with practical farming experience. Future agricultural systems must move beyond short-term responses to climatic extremes towards long-term resilience. The key challenge is therefore not only how to maintain productivity under changing conditions, but how to adapt and improve production systems so that soil, crops, and climate are managed as an integrated whole. This requires effective knowledge transfer, innovation, farmer engagement, and supportive agricultural policies.
1993: PhD in chemistry, Mainz University, Germany. 1994: Institute of Microtechnology Mainz (IMM), finally as Director R&D. 2011: Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology. 2018: Deputy Dean (Research) and Professor at Adelaide University, School of Chemical Engineering, Australia. 2019: part-time professor at University of Warwick, UK. 2023: Research Director of the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources and Program Lead in the ARC Centre of Excellence Plants for Space. Prof. Hessel's research designs and assesses the sustainability of new continuous-flow and plasma-catalytic processes and their application in health, chemistry, critical minerals, space, and agrifood. He has published 943 peer-reviewed papers (h-index: 101).
A true digital twin (DT) continuously monitors, controls and optimises its physical twin — a vineyard, in this study. A DT comprises sensing, data transfer, modelling, and decision-making. While the first three are already well developed, even up to commercial services, decision-making lags behind and therefore provides a great opportunity. A multi-agent generative system (MAGS) has been designed for grapevine disease management, employing a cognitive reasoning cycle known as Observe–Reflect–Plan–Act (ORPA). 7,222 training images and 1,805 testing images were gathered using drone canopy imaging in a commercial 25-hectare vineyard of Serafino Wines over a full vine growth season from October 2025 to January 2026. By machine learning (ML) modelling the severity for four vine disease classes was determined. Based on this, the decision support system (DSS) VineGuard decided the selection of the appropriate fungicide and its spray volume, as well as the timing and dosage of fungicide spraying, aligned to regulatory application compliance, along with the determination of the carbon footprint. This pre-commercial MAGS-governance flow has been designed with the XMPro collaborator, that is of dual nature. First, as a deterministic way, mathematical equations were determined by AI to guide the MAGS-decision by defining switching points. Second, a probabilistic, context-sensitive chat of MAGS-agents provides a forum for discourse that finalises the decision. The deterministic route can be used standalone (outside the governance flow), when integrating the single mathematical functions into a team utility function, providing one collaborative rating out of several antagonistic decision drivers. The strength of the discourse facilitation has been improved by combining computational (agent) capability with human expertise, using AI protocols, and then creating humanoid agents. The humanoid agents lever Green Chemistry expertise for lack of carbon footprint data, when calculating the process mass index. For fast, purely deterministic decisions aside the MAGS-VineGuard, team utility functions are proposed and developed, at the example of tomato transgenics research in ‘Plants for Space’ (ARC Centre of Excellence P4S).
Monika Marković is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek, University of Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek, Republic of Croatia. Her core research, academic, and professional expertise lies in agricultural water management, specifically focusing on drainage and irrigation systems. Her primary research interests include drought monitoring and mitigation, crop water requirements, irrigation water quality assessment, and the integration of modern digital technologies and smart solutions into precision irrigation planning and implementation. Over the course of her career, she has authored numerous scientific papers, led and participated in national and international research projects, and mentored students across undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. She actively collaborates with agricultural practitioners to bridge the gap between scientific research and sustainable field management.
Crop production faces unprecedented challenges due to climate change, characterized by frequent droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns. Addressing these challenges requires a shift toward precision irrigation, a key strategy for optimizing agricultural water management. This presentation highlights how modern digital solutions enhance water use efficiency while ensuring crop yield and quality. Through the integration of real-time soil moisture sensors, microclimate monitoring, remote sensing, and data-driven crop models, precision irrigation allows for exact calculation of crop water requirements. The lecture addresses critical components of digital water management, including automated scheduling based on field capacity and management allowable depletion thresholds, as well as the evaluation of irrigation water quality parameters. By replacing conventional uniform irrigation with spatial and temporal variable-rate applications, digital solutions effectively reduce over-irrigation, mitigate plant abiotic stress, and lower energy consumption. Ultimately, this lecture demonstrates how leveraging digital tools bridges scientific research and practical field applications, ensuring sustainable water resources management in modern agriculture.
Dr Vinay Pagay (BEng Hons, BSc Hons, MSc, PhD) is an Associate Professor of Viticulture and agriculture technologist at Adelaide University, Australia. Vinay has researched grapevines for over 20 years and teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students grapevine physiology, vineyard engineering and technology, and horticulture crop production. He has worked in vineyards, wineries and grape/wine research institutions on four continents, and is particularly passionate about Australian viticulture, which brought him to Adelaide University in 2015. His current research focuses on understanding the effects of climate on grapevine performance, grape and wine composition and quality, and the application of proximal and remote sensing tools to improve vineyard management. He also works on grapevine signalling under stress, grapevine virology, and clonal selection, and is co-inventor of two novel crop water status sensors, both commercialised, and co-founder of Athena IR-Tech, based in Adelaide, South Australia.
Major viticulture and horticulture regions globally are experiencing unprecedented challenges ranging from climate factors, production efficiencies, labour markets, and demand-supply imbalances, which together are increasing the production and economic risks faced by farmers. I will address these risks and present opportunities for digital agriculture technologies (dAgTech) to mitigate these risks, with a focus on those presented by climate variability and extreme weather events. I present specific case studies from the last decade of our research on heat and drought stress mitigation in vineyards and orchards where we have demonstrated the potential of dAgTech to, at least partially, offset these risks through greater resource use efficiencies and sustainable use of farm inputs, which can increase crop quality and profitability.
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Dr. Tihomir Kovač is an assistant professor at the Department of Ecology and Toxicology, Faculty of Food Technology Osijek, and one of Croatia's leading researchers in fungal biology and mycotoxicology. His research centres on fungi from several angles: how fullerenol nanoparticles affect Aspergillus secondary metabolism and mycotoxin production, how climate change alters fungal metabolism, and the antifungal and antimycotoxigenic effects of natural and synthetic compounds. He also studies cultivation of the medicinal mushroom Hericium erinaceus. He has published 56 papers and 3 book chapters, cited over 500 times (h-index 14 WoS/Scopus, 19 Google Scholar), and first identified cordycepin as an A. flavus metabolite (Scientific Reports, 2020). In 2025 he guest-edited three special issues on mycotoxins and fungal stress responses. Since 2015 he has collaborated with BOKU's IFA-Tulln institute in Austria and currently leads five fungi-related research projects worth over €1.1 million.
Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is one of the most disease-sensitive crops in temperate viticulture and the pressure exerted by its major pathogens is being reshaped by a changing climate. This lecture reviews the principal biotic threats to the vine — foliar and cluster diseases such as downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola), powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator) and grey mould (Botrytis cinerea); the increasingly damaging grapevine trunk disease complex (Esca, Botryosphaeria and Eutypa dieback); and vector-borne phytoplasma diseases such as Flavescence dorée, whose range is expanding. Warmer winters, altered rainfall and longer growing seasons are shifting infection timing, disease severity and the geographic distribution of both pathogens and their vectors, challenging conventional spray-based control. The talk then turns to sustainable strategies that reduce reliance on chemical inputs — integrated and precision disease management, tolerant cultivars and the improvement of vine vigour and stress resilience through soil health and arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis. Finally, it considers how sensor networks, epidemiological models and digital-twin approaches can enable earlier, more targeted intervention, linking grapevine health directly to the central theme of the workshop.
This panel brings together key stakeholders from agriculture, the IT sector, and academia to explore the real-world implementation of digital technologies in farming. While concepts such as smart farming, precision agriculture, and AI-driven decision-making are widely discussed, their practical adoption varies significantly across contexts.
The discussion will focus on concrete experiences from agricultural producers who have already implemented digital solutions in their operations, offering insights into what has delivered real value and what has proven challenging. Perspectives from the IT sector will highlight the development and deployment of digital tools, addressing issues such as usability, scalability, and alignment with end-user needs. Academic contributors will provide an overview of current research trends and the role of education in preparing future professionals for digital transformation in agriculture.
The panel will address key questions related to the effectiveness, accessibility, and limitations of existing technologies, as well as the barriers to wider adoption, including costs, complexity, data integration, and user readiness. It will also explore the level of collaboration required between farmers, developers, and researchers to ensure meaningful and sustainable innovation.
By combining practical experience with technological and scientific perspectives, the panel aims to provide a balanced and realistic view of where digital agriculture stands today—and what steps are needed to move forward.
- Agricultural producer(s) with experience in digital farming implementation
- Representative(s) from the IT sector developing digital agriculture solutions
- Academic researcher(s) in digital agriculture / precision farming
- Expert involved in higher education and training in agricultural digitalisation
- (Optional) Representative from policy or advisory services in agriculture