Dr. Magnus Halling, has a Ph.D. in Crop Production Science from the Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences, where he has been involved in forage crop research for 20 years in the Department of Ecology and Crop Production Science. Main research area is in management and production of forage crops, e.g. properties of new and commonly used species, variety testing, seed mixtures for different purposes, influence of the winter period on survival and production, how application of manure affects silage quality and nitrate leaching of legumes. Has been involved in two EU-projects. The first called LEGSIL (Low input animal production based on forage legumes for silage) between 1997 and 2001 where he coordinated the component on agronomy of forage legumes. Through this project cooperation was established with the University of Helsinki, Field Research Organizations in Finland, the Institute of Grasslands and Forage Plants in Braunschweig, Germany and the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER) in United Kingdom. The second ongoing EU-project is SWEETGRASS (Grazing and ensiling of energy-rich grasses with elevated sugar contents for the sustainable production of ruminant livestock) where he is responsible for the agronomy component. The project started in September 2001 and will run for four years. Dr. Halling has also spent two years (1989-1991) carrying out agronomy research in sorghum and millet in Zambia. He has more than 30 scientific publications. At the university gives courses in crop production at M.Sc.-level and acts as assistant supervisor for Ph.D.-students.

website: http://www.evp.slu.se