The site of Qualiagro is part of the French national network SOERE PRO (System of Observation and Experimentation for Environmental Research on Organic Residue Recycling). The objectives of QualiAgro are to characterize the agronomic value of urban waste composts and their environmental impacts, in a long-term field trials and related laboratory characterization of the residues. The experimental site (48.90°N and 1.97°E) is located in Feucherolles France (175 m.a.s.l.) with a modified oceanic climate. The soil is a typical Luvisol on loess of the Paris Basin. It has been initiated in 1998 (INRA-Veolia partnership). It is structured as a complete randomized block design (4 replicates, 450m²/plots) on a total surface of 6 ha and include 5 organic treatments: 3 urban composts - a co-compost of Green Waste and Sludge (GWS), a Biowaste compost (BIOW) and a municipal solid waste compost (MSW) - , 1 reference organic amendment not composted - a farmyard manure (FYM)- and the control - without organic input. Amendments are applied every 2 years on wheat stubble with an objective of 4 t C ha-1. Additionally, the different treatments received 2 levels of additional mineral nitrogen: low mineral N or optimum mineral N. The field is managed in conventional wheat-maize rotation. Site and plots are equipped for continuous monitoring of meteorological data, soil temperature and humidity. One plot of each treatment is equipped with wick lysimeters at 2 depths (0.45 m and 1 m). At the end of 2014, automatics chambers for N2O and CO2 emission survey will be settled, in order to assess greenhouse gas emissions related to composts and manure use. A Large set of variables mainly including physico-chemical characteristics, are monitored on different compartments of the agro-system (composts, soils, plants, water leaching). For example composts quality, crop yields and grain and crop residues analytical characteristics , main soil analytical characteristics per layer , the chemical composition of soil solution (collected with lysimeters), biological communities (microfauna and macrofauned sampling, microbial biomass ) and activities (enzymatic activities, mineralization of organic matter). Data will be stored in a common database specifically developed for the SOERE PRO network and connected with the other SOERE. Soil and plant samples are kept in collection and available for further measurements.

This platform provide all the tools and skills required for answering fundamental or applied research questions in ecology, ecotoxicology, evolutionary biology, etc. It hosts multidisciplinary programs with applied issues concerning the evolutions of aquatic ecosystems under contrasted stressors: local stress (due to agricultural, industrial, urban activities) and/or global stress (due to climate change, but also to changes in land use or biological invasions). The PEARL facility consists in: - an experimental complex of two multipurpose halls (400 m² each), greenhouses (250 m²), an outdoor pond platform (500 m²) and about sixty aquatic mesocosms, located on the Rennes Agrocampus Ouest site. - A “pond” station of around 30 ponds (total surface of 5ha), in Le Rheu near Rennes.