CONFERENCE REPORT 3rd European Biobed Workshop Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy, 30 August—1 September 2010 Tineke De Wilde & Ettore Capri & Jens Husby & Maria del Pilar Castillo & Dimitrios Karpouzas & Eskil Nilsson & Niels Henrik Spliid Received: 11 October 2010 / Accepted: 14 October 2010 / Published online: 23 October 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010 The 3rd European Biobed Workshop was jointly organized by OPERA, a research center of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC), Laboratory of Crop Protection Chemistry of Ghent University, and Bayer Crop Science. The main aim of the workshop was to bring together scientists, industry, and policy makers working in the field of biopurification systems (BPS) and give them the opportunity to share and discuss the latest scientific results, views, and developments. A BPS is a general name for a system treating pesticide-contaminated water that may cause point source pollution. A biobed, biofilter, bio- massbed, Phytobac©, etc. are all common names used in Europe to describe a BPS. The workshop was opened by Prof. Ettore Capri from UCSC and Jens Husby from Bayer Crop Science who welcomed 47 participants from 15 countries. The workshop was divided into four oral sessions spread over 2 days. The sessions covered the following topics: 1. Degradation of pesticides in BPS 2. Composition of the biomix 3. Efficiency of the system and its use in practice 4. Approved systems/construction and dimensions of the system The first session, which consisted of five oral presentations, was chaired by Dr. Maria del Pilar Castillo. Dr. Leticia Pizzul presented results on the degradation of glyphosate by manganese peroxidase and laccase enzymes. Both enzymes degraded (between 40% and 100%) the herbicide, but with some differences. MnP used glyphosate as substrate and the degradation was enhanced in the presence of mediators, while degradation by laccase occurred only in the presence of the mediators. Dr. Laura Coppola presented work on the degradation of fungicides and their effect on microbial communities in a biomixture consisting of wheat straw and pruning residues. The biomixture efficiently degrad- ed (60–100%) the mixture of fungicides which were applied at multiple steps. Sorption and degradation of pesticides was characterized by Dr. Tineke De Wilde on an increasing spatial scale, from batch to column experi- ments. Biomixture composition did not have a significant influence on pesticide leaching, the use of pesticide- primed material enhanced the degradation of certain Responsible editor: Alvin Lee Young T. De Wilde (*) Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium e-mail: dewilde.tineke@gmail.com E. Capri Università Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy J. Husby Bayer Crop Science, Lyngby, Denmark M. del Pilar Castillo Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Uppsala, Sweden D. Karpouzas University of Thessaly, Larisa, Greece E. Nilsson Visavi, Vellinge, Sweden N. H. Spliid Aarhus University, Slagelse, Denmark Environ Sci Pollut Res (2011) 18:132–134 DOI 10.1007/s11356-010-0407-y