A new scientific article has been published entitled "The pitfalls of water potential for irrigation scheduling".

Abstract: The water potential (Ψp), has been widely used as an indicator of plant water status for irrigation management purposes. The simple infrastructure needed for its measurement and its direct relation to basic plant physiological processes, have contributed to the popularity of the methodology. When used for irrigation scheduling, it is commonly assumed that an unavoidable relationship exists between plant transpiration (T), soil water content and Ψp. Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that variations in Ψp are not solely related to changes in soil water content, but are also an expression of the interaction between the plant and its environment. We used a soilplant-atmosphere-continuum (SPAC) model to highlight the importance of considering such interactions through a series of in silico experiments. Our analysis shows that evaporative demand, the hydraulic architecture of the plant, and the texture and depth of the soil play key roles in the final Ψp observed. To establish irrigation programs based on Ψp, without considering the environmental and plant factors that influence it, can create the paradox of having a plant that suffers greater water stress even when high irrigation volumes are applied. The conclusions from our in silico analysis provide some warnings that should be considered when using Ψp to schedule irrigation.

Download the full article from here

VISCA e-workshop: Discover how VISCA DSS supports viticulturists in climate change adaptation
(Registration is open)

Date: 29th October 2020
Time: 10:00 am -12:00 pm CET (2 hours)

Our consortium is pleased to invite you to 'VISCA e-workshop' to be held online on Thursday, 29th October 2020 from 10:00am-12:00 pm CET. The e-workshop aims to bring wine growers, agronomists, scientific community, commercial partners and others to discover the latest release of VISCA Decision Support System (DSS), its added value and how it supports viticulturists in adapting to climate change. Also, the commercial opportunities and the exploitation of the tool will be discussed.
VISCA e-workshop is expected to be interactive with feedback collection and Q&A sessions during presentations. Registration to the e-workshop is open until 28 October 2020 [click here]. After registration, the link to connect to the meeting will be sent. 

Agenda:

• Short introduction on VISCA project
• Presentation of the VISCA DSS (phenology, irrigation and weather forecasts information widgets) 
• Presentation of results achieved, key finding from the demonstration sites
• VISCA commercial strategy & opportunities
• Conclusions
  

The third issue of VISCA Newsletter has been released. It recaps our activities and prelimenary results since the beginning of the project. Also, the date of the Final Conferene is set for the 15 December 2020 (pre-registration is available). Check it out here and subscribe to receive the next issue of our newsletter!

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.

On November 12th 2019, our partners made a presentation about VISCA DSS where practical information from the project was shared with vineyards growers of Raimat and Agropixel. Interesting exchanges were made with the participants and the feedback was gathered as inputs for exploitation activities.

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

VISCA project - which has developed a climate service and a Decision Support System to make European wine industry resilient to climate change and to climate variability - organized a training at LINKS Foundation premises, in Torino on 4th-5th July 2019.

The main objective of the training was to show the end-users how to use the developed tool in a practical way as well as how to interpret the model outputs. The training also illustrated the ways to access to climate information while providing vineyard data by the end-users. During the training, VISCA consortium, including the 3 end-users, provided feedback and a list of improvements, they also presented, discussed and signed a protocol in order to deepen the evaluation of the DSS. Finally, different sessions about the commercial exploitation plan and the upcoming communication activities were presented and discussed.

This meeting was very useful for the consortium to share and discuss  the recent achievements and also to coordinate the efforts for facing the last challenges of the project which terminates in April 2020.

VISCA Insights: A short interview with Mr. David Jorquera García from the Think Tank InnoTech (T3i_InnoTech) about the use of the climate services in the olive sector and the potenial impact of VISCA.