On 15^th December 2020, VISCA Final Conference was held virtually to present the results of the project and the way forward. The conference attracted around 60 participants with a variety of profiles: viticulturists, wine producers, scientists, agricultural communities, software providers, entrepreneurs, media, among others who connected to the e-conference from 10 countries: Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Israel, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and the UK.

The e-conference started with a welcoming statement from the project coordinator (METEOSIM) by Josep Sole Maria and the CEO of METEOSIM Oriol de Tera who opened the floor to the two guest speakers from the European Commission: Sasa Zavadlav (VISCA project Officer) and Marjan Van Meerloo, Directorate General for Research & Innovation. They both presented 'R&I contribution to the Green Deal objectives: Climate Action'.

After that, a session on VISCA presentation and results was organized. A short presentation of VISCA was made by the project Coordinator Josep Maria Solé. Then, Claudio Rossi from LINKS  Foundation made a short live demo of the VISCA Decision Support System (DSS) & its added value. The DSS is a Progressive Web Application which integrates climate and agricultural models with farmers’ management specifications to design short practices, medium- and long-term adaptation strategies to climate change. The live demo showed the integrated dashboard of the DSS with its 3 main widgets (phenology, sugar accumulation, irrigation and weather forecasts) as well as the features in relation to the map-based visualization. Later, the key results of the validation of the DSS and the climate services as well as the outcomes from the agronomic techniques: crop forcing and shoot trimming were illustrated by Omar Garcia from IRTA. VISCA solutions were demonstrated in 3 sites in Italy, Portugal and Spain . An interactive round table with end-users representing Codorniu (Xavier Bordes), Symington (Fernando Alves) and Mastroberardino (Antonio Dente) was part of this session where they shared their feedback from the implementation of VISCA solutions.

VISCA DSS is integrating climate and agricultural models with farmers’ management specifications in order to design short practices, medium- and long-term adaptation strategies to climate change.

In the Irpinia Valley, located in south of Italy (about 60 km from Naples), a very warm winter influenced the precocity of the budbreak that occurred one week earlier than average. Also, blooming advanced earlier followed by a rainy month of June with some problems of downy mildew. However, with the predictions supplied by VISCA DSS, the Mastroberardino viticulture team was able to contain the disease by increasing the number of treatments sprays, anticipating the action as the prediction of several days of rainfall was given.

VISCA DSS showing that bud break and blooming have been achieved and earlier than normal (July 2020)

Blooming observed in the field - Italian Demo Site (July 2020)

This summer, VISCA DSS, in particular the short-term and mid-term climate forecasts, has predicted lower precipitation than normal and higher temperature than normal in Mirabella Eclano estate in the Campania region, where our Italian demonstration site is located. Before the phenological phase of blooming, the DSS, through the seasonal forecast, predicted a dry and hotter summer than normal, followed by the months of September and October with the same trend. Aglianico is the grapevine under the VISCA experimental plot and it is extremely sensible to powdery mildew disease. The dry season usually influences the development of the fungus directly on the grapes. Therefore, such useful predictions allowed the Mastroberardino vinegrowers to take decisions about the canopy and vineyards management in advance. First of all they programmed:

Future increases in temperatures are expected to advance grapevine phenology and shift ripening to warmer months, leaving a longer post-harvest period with warmer temperatures. Accumulation of carbohydrates occurs during post-harvest, and has an influence on vegetative growth and yield in the following growing season. This study addressed the possibility of adopting regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) during post-harvest in Chardonnay. Four irrigation treatments during post-harvest were applied over three consecutive seasons: (i) control (C), with full irrigation; (ii) low regulated deficit irrigation for sparkling base wine production (RDIL SP), from harvest date of sparkling base wine, irrigation when stem water potential (Ψstem) was less than −0.9 MPa; (iii) mild regulated deficit irrigation for sparkling base wine production (RDIM SP), from harvest date of sparkling base wine, irrigation when Ψstem was less than −1.25 MPa; (iv) mild regulated deficit irrigation for wine production (RDIM W), from harvest data of wine, irrigation when Ψstem was less than −1.25 MPa. Root starch concentration in full irrigation was higher than under RDI. Yield parameters did not differ between treatments, but differences in berry composition were detected. Considering that the desirable berry composition attributes of white varieties are high in titratable acidity, it would seem inappropriate to adopt RDI strategy during post-harvest. However, in a scenario of water restriction, it may be considered because there was less impact on yield and berry composition than if RDI had been adopted during pre-harvest.

Download the full scientific article: Post-Harvest Regulated Deficit Irrigation in Chardonnay Did Not Reduce Yield but at Long-Term, It Could Affect Berry Composition

Conclusions from the Decadal Projections Performance Report

Facing climate change and climate variability is one of the main challenges in viticulture. Developing strategic actions to adapt viticulture to the impacts of a warmer climate is one of the main interests of the sector, which has been suffering for changes in the quality and yield.

A report has recently been published by VISCA project ‘Decadal projection performance report (D2.5)’ which provides a set of regional climate projections at European scale and at demosites of the project (Campania region, Mirabella Eclano Estate (Mastroberardino-Italy), Costers del Segre region, Raimat hills (Codorniu- Spain),  Douro Valley, Porto (Symington-Portugal)). These projections would bring an added value for the wine industry to plan long-term adaptation strategies to face climate change and a new climate variability in the coming decades.

First of all, EURO-CORDEX climate projections have been analysed in terms of their ability to reproduce the historical climate. As a result, it has been confirmed that EURO-CORDEX is representing correctly the temporal and spatial correlation of the main interesting variables such as mean temperature and precipitation, climate extremes such as droughts, spring frosts and heatwaves and, finally, specific agronomical parameters such the Winkler index.

After that, the analysis of climate projections at European scale and at demosites is providing by comparing the climatology off the period 2070-2099 against the historical period 1976-2005. In terms of precipitation, a decrease in the southern European countries, which is more intense in the summer months. In terms of temperature, there is a clear increase throughout Europe, although it is more intense in southern countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and in norther countries like Sweden and Finland. Regarding extreme events, there is an increase of the length of droughts, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, a decrease of frost days in spring months and an increase of heatwaves, especially in the southern European countries.

Check out the latest article from My Climate Services presenting our project and how it aims to make the European wine industries resilient to climate change: VISCA: Protecting 20 Billion Euros from Climate Change