Niedrist: The agricultural sector is certainly the one first and most affected by climate change. Most of it happens outside and is therefore directly exposed to climate and weather conditions. But even in agriculture, not every product is equally dependent on the weather. In the dairy industry, the influence of the climate is less significant, especially in terms job function email database price. In viticulture, on the other hand, hailstorms, late frost or excessive drought have a direct impact on the price.
Which aspect of climate change will affect agriculture the most?
Tagliavini: The biggest impact will certainly be the increase in air temperature and indirectly, higher soil temperatures too. This is often forgotten. Another important aspect is the increasing unpredictability of the climate. Until now, agriculture has been able to rely on a constant climate. Of course, weather conditions were not the same every year, but for each region prompt for personal information was a long-term average and deviation from this was acknowledged. These deviations from the average have increased significantly. This is particularly evident in frost or very severe, sudden drops in temperature. Extreme heat waves are also occurring more frequently now.
In South Tyrol, we have the terraXcube
Eurac Research’s extreme climate simulator and with it, we can test how such extreme book your list and fluctuations affect crops. Currently, unibz and Eurac Research, together with the Laimburg Research Center and the University of Innsbruck, are using the infrastructure to investigate the consequences of heat waves for viticulture in the CLEVAS project.
Tagliavini: In several trials in 2021 and 2023, we investigated how grapevines of the Sauvignon variety survive heatwaves, different levels of water availability and temperatures of up to 40 degrees – that is around 10 degrees above average. We carried out tests with apples and vines in the climate chambers. This confirmed that the vine, in contrast to the apple tree as a typical Mediterranean crop, does not suffer particularly from high temperatures, as long as it has sufficient water.
