The 1st HortOlympics took place in Räpina, Estonia from the 30th to the 31st of May 2019. The competition was dedicated to Räpina School of Horticulture 95 and Estonia 100.
18 teams from 15 European countries participated in the competition. Competitors had to demonstrate skills in twenty different competition areas – knowing plants, seeds and fruits, trimming lawn, planting, sowing seeds, transplant seedlings, grafting, making indoor plant cuttings, putting on a personal protective equipment and cloths, assembling an irrigation system, calculating container volume and fertilizer quantity, guessing different fruit and vegetable weight, make different calculations, building an insect hotel, to program a Bee-Bot robot, to determine the height of the tree, the circumference and age of the tree and other. All teams were very thoroughly prepared and achieved high scores.
There were more than 110 people involved with the contest. There were guests/ observers from Austria, Italy, from The Netherlands and Sweden, from the Estonian Ministry of Rural Affairs and from the Association Innove. The Räpina School of Horticulture accompanied judges from different institutions and partners (Click & Grow, Tami Automatics, Kanepi Gerdening Farm, Baltic Agro, Valgeanso Farm, Aiasõber, OÜ, Kopli Vocational School, Tallinn Zoo, Tallinn Botanical Garden, Estonian University of Life Scienses).
The organizing and conducting of the 1st HortOlympics was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Rural Affairs, Foundation INNOVE, Click & Grow, Tami Automatics, Reginett, Matogard, GreenTOP, Aran Farming, Tamme Farm, Garden-centre Gardest, Sagro, Seston Seeds, Kanepi Gardening Farm, Baltic Agro, Värska Water, Valgeanso Farm, Räpina School of Horticulture.
In the end, everyone was the winner. These two days were full of new experiences, new knowledges and new friends! EUROPEAn spirit was in the air…
The official website (you find from website the programme, tasks instructions, results and photo galleries etc): aianduskool.ee/hortolympics/
We hope that the story of HortOlympics just started and will continue on coming years.
Text: Katrin Uurman
Photos: Pedro Martins, Andrus Karpson, Indrek Kaeli
