identifying the most promising agronomic adaptation strategies for the tomato growing systems in southern italy via simulation modeling

Abstract The main cultivation area of the Italian processing tomato is the Southern Capitanata plain. Here, the hardest agronomic challenge is the optimization of the irrigation water use, which is often inefficiently performed by farmers, who tend to over-irrigate. This could become unsustainable in the next years, given the negative impacts of climatic changes on groundwater availability and heat stress intensification. The aim of the study was to identify the most promising agronomic strategies to optimize tomato yield and water use in Capitanata, through a modeling study relying on an extensive dataset for model calibration and evaluation (22 data sets in 2005–2018). The TOMGRO simulation model was adapted to open-field growing conditions and was coupled with a soil model to reproduce the impact of water stress on yield and fruit quality. The new model, TomGro_field, was applied on the tomato cultivation area in Capitanata at 5 × 5 km spatial resolution using an ensemble of future climatic scenarios, resulting from the combination of four General Circulation Models, two extreme Representative Concentration Pathways and five 10-years time frames (2030–2070). Our results showed an overall negative impact of climate change on tomato yields (average decrease = 5–10%), which could be reversed by i) the implementation of deficit irrigation strategies based on the restitution of 60–70% of the crop evapotranspiration, ii) the adoption of varieties with longer cycle and iii) the anticipation of 1–2 weeks in transplanting dates. The corresponding irrigation amounts applied are around 360 mm, thus reinforcing that a rational water management could be realized. Our study provides agronomic indications to tomato growers and lays the basis for a bio-economic analysis to support policy makers in charge of promoting the sustainability of the tomato growing systems

Upscaling miscanthus production in the United Kingdom: the benefits, challenges, and trade‐offs

The UK sixth carbon budget has recommended domestic biomass supply should increase to meet growing demand, planting a minimum of 30,000 hectares of perennial energy crops a year by 2035, with a view to establishing 700,000 hectares by 2050 to meet the requirements of the balanced net zero pathway. Miscanthus is a key biomass crop to scale up domestic biomass production in the United Kingdom. A cohesive land management strategy, based on robust evidence, will be required to ensure upscaling of miscanthus cultivation maximizes the environmental and economic benefits and minimizes undesirable consequences. This review examines research into available land areas, environmental impacts, barriers to uptake, and the challenges, benefits, and trade-offs required to upscale miscanthus production on arable land and grassland in the United Kingdom. Expansion of perennial biomass crops has been considered best restricted to marginal land, less suited to food production. The review identifies a trade-off between avoiding competition with food production and a risk of encroaching on areas containing high-biodiversity or high-carbon stocks, such as semi-natural grasslands. If areas of land suitable for food production are needed to produce the biomass required for emission reduction, the review indicates there are multiple strategies for miscanthus to complement long-term food security rather than compete with it. On arable land, a miscanthus rotation with a cycle length of 10–20 years can be employed as fallow period for fields experiencing yield decline, soil fatigue, or persistent weed problems. On improved grassland areas, miscanthus presents an option for diversification, flood mitigation, and water quality improvement. Strategies need to be developed to integrate miscanthus into farming systems in a way that is profitable, sensitive to local demand, climate, and geography, and complements rather than competes with food production by increasing overall farm profitability and resilience

IN SILICO EVALUATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON THE QUALITATIVE ASPECTS OF RICE PRODUCTIONS IN THE MAIN ITALIAN RICE-GROWING DISTRICT

The definition of food security provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) includes the quality of agricultural products as a principal pillar, intended as the production of nutritious food to allow people to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. In a world that is undergoing major physical, social, and economic transitions, the achievement of global food security is undermined by the projected increase of human population to 9 billion people by 2050. Nowadays, even if the current total food production would be capable to provide humankind with enough calories, the latest FAO statistics estimate that hundreds of millions of people live in hunger or lack a suitable supply of food. This is why the world governments are acting to meet the need of higher quality diets as a main objective. The challenge to improve the quality and the nutritional value of crop productions is also threatened by the climate change issue, with agriculture representing the most vulnerable economic sector due to the deep influence of weather conditions on the performances of cropping system. The only viable solution to gain information on the future trends of the qualitative aspect of crop production and to provide farmers and stakeholders in agriculture with effective adaptation strategies is the use of process based simulation models, which are capable to reproduce the responses of biophysical systems to changing boundary conditions. This doctorate gives answers to these research questions, by developing a reference methodological framework to assess the quality of rice (Oryza sativa L.) \u2013the first staple food crop in the world \u2013 in current and future climatic conditions. The first chapter presents a software library of models to simulate the dynamics of the main aspects of rice grain quality as a function of agro-meteorological conditions. This research product is released as a framework independent component, fostering extension with new models and reuse by third parties intended as collaborations between research entities. In the second chapter the performances of the rice quality models in reproducing observed field data of milling quality and functional properties of grains are tested in a multi-site and multi-year evaluation, prior to be used to assess climate change impacts. The third chapter deals with the development of a forecasting system targeting the simulation of qualitative and quantitative rice productions in Northern Italy, the main European producing area. This pilot study is realized by coupling the WARM rice model with rice quality models, taking the head rice yield, i.e., the percentage of entire grains as a case study. The fourth chapter presents the complete workflow to assess the climate change impacts on crop productivity in the Lombardy plain via the application of process based models at a fine spatial resolution. An exploratory analysis of the impacts of climate change on giant reed crop is performed to illustrate the potentialities of the methodology. This work led the basis to the last chapter, where a comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of climate change on rice milling quality and technological suitability is performed in Europe. The main sources of uncertainties in climate change projections were taken into account, i.e., General Circulation Models and emission scenarios, to give an ensemble of future weather scenarios as input data to the models. The implementation of remote sensing to detect rice sowing dates and the assimilation of local farmers management led to a tight adherence between simulated and real system. The main perspective of this work is the application of the methodological framework developed here in top producing rice countries, in order to allow moving a step forward the mere focus on the quantitative trends of crop production in a changing climate

IN SILICO IDEOTYPING: DEFINITION AND EVALUATION OF RICE IDEOTYPES IMPROVED FOR RESISTANCE/TOLERANCE TRAITS TO BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC STRESSORS UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS

The development of new cultivars better adapted to specific growing conditions is a key strategy to meet an ever-increasing growing global food demand and search for more sustainable cropping systems. This is even more crucial in the context of a changing climate. Ecophysiological models and advanced computational techniques (e.g., sensitivity analysis, SA) represent powerful tools to analyze genotype (G) by environment (E) interactions, thus supporting breeders in identifying key traits for specific agro-environmental contexts. However, limits for the effective use of mathematical models within breeding programs are represented by the uncertainty in the distribution of plant trait values, the lack of processes dealing with resistance/tolerance traits in most ideotyping studies, the partial suitability of current crop models for ideotyping purposes, and the absence of modelling tools directly usable by breeders. The aim of this research was to address these issues improving methodologies already in use, proposing new paradigms for the development of crop models explicitly targeting ideotyping applications and developing tools that would encourage a deep interaction of the modelling and breeding communities. The focus was on rice, for its role as staple food for more than a half of world\u2019s population, and on resistance/tolerance traits to biotic/abiotic stressors, for their central role in increasing crop adaptation. Moreover, current conditions and climate change projections were considered, to support the definition of strategies for breeding in the medium-long term. A standard procedure to quantify 12 and manage 12 the impact of the uncertainty in the distribution of plant trait values was developed, using the WARM rice model and the Sobol\u2019 method as case study. The approach is based on a SA (generating sample of parameter distributions) of a SA (generating samples of parameters for each generated distribution) using distributions of jackknife statistics calculated on literature values to reproduce the uncertainty in defining parameters distributions. As a practical implication, the procedure developed allows identifying plant traits whose uncertainty in distribution can alter ideotyping results, i.e., traits whose distributions could need to be refined. Global SA was then used to identify rice traits putatively producing the largest yield benefits in five contrasting districts in the Philippines, India, China, Japan and Italy. The analysis involved phenotypic traits dealing with light interception, photosynthetic efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stressors, resistance to fungal pathogens and grain quality. Results suggested that breeding for traits involved with disease resistance and tolerance to cold- and heat-induced spikelet sterility could provide benefits similar to those obtained from improving traits affecting potential yield. Instead, advantages resulting from varying traits involved with grain quality were markedly frustrated by inter-annual weather variability. Since results highlighted strong G 7E interactions, a new index to derive district-specific ideotypes was developed. Given the key role of biotic/abiotic stressors in determining actual yield and the deep impact of related G 7E interactions, a study was carried out by explicitly focusing on the definition of rice ideotypes improved for their resistance to fungal pathogens and tolerance to abiotic constraints (temperature shocks inducing sterility). The analysis was carried out at district level with a high spatial resolution (5 km 7 5 km elementary simulation unit), targeting the improvement of the most representative 34 varieties in six Italian rice districts. Genetic improvement was simulated via the introgression of traits from donor varieties. Results clearly showed that breeders should focus on increasing resistance to blast disease, as this appears as a factor markedly limiting rice yields in Italy, regardless of the districts and climate scenarios, whereas benefits deriving from improving tolerance to cold-induced sterility could be markedly affected by G 7E interactions. To reduce the risk of discrepancies between in silico ideotypes and their in vivo realizations, both studies involved only model parameters with a close relationship with phenotypic traits breeders are working on. However, a long-term strategy to overcome limitations related with the partial suitability of available models would be building new ideotyping-specific models explicitly around traits involved in breeding programs. This proposal for a paradigm shift in model development was illustrated taking salt stress tolerance and rice as a case study. Dedicated growth chamber experiments were conducted to develop a new model explicitly accounting for tolerance traits modulating Na+ uptake and distribution in plant tissues, as well as the impact of the accumulated Na+ on photosynthesis, senescence and spikelet sterility. An ideotyping study was conducted at two sites (in Greece and California) characterized by different seasonal dynamics of salinity in field water. Results showed how, under different scenarios, traits assuring the largest contribution to the overall tolerance could refer to completely different physiological mechanisms: tissue tolerance in one case, sodium exclusion in the other. This encourages the development of explicit trait-based approaches to increase the integration of crop models within breeding programs. A parallel path to achieve this goal is the development of modelling platforms targeting breeders as final users, who does not have necessarily in-depth skills in crop modelling and IT. The platform ISIde, derived from a close collaboration between target users, biophysical modelers and IT specialists, represents the first prototype of a platform specifically developed for being used directly by breeders to evaluate in silico improved varieties at district level. This thesis demonstrated the usefulness of simulation models for the definition of ideotypes for specific agro-environmental conditions. Targeting ideotyping applications, new methodologies, paradigms for model development and modelling tools were developed, thus contributing to improve the potential of crop modelling to support breeding programs. Future developments will target researches aimed at overcoming the limits behind this study, i.e., (i) absence of explicit interactions between traits, (ii) no adaptation strategies considered, and (iii) lack of approaches for the simulation of the evolutionary potential of pathogens in response to long-term climate variations and increased host resistance

Status and challenges of black soils.

A global overview of black soils; Multiple benefits of black soils; Main threats to black soils; Challenges

Turn down the heat

This report provides a snapshot of recent scientific literature and new analyses of likely impacts and risks that would be associated with a 4° Celsius warming within this century.  It is a rigorous attempt to outline a range of risks, focusing on developing countries and especially the poor. A 4°C world would be one of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions, with serious impacts on ecosystems and associated services. But with action, a 4°C world can be avoided and we can likely hold warming below 2°C. Without further commitments and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the world is likely to warm by more than 3°C above the preindustrial climate. Even with the current mitigation commitments and pledges fully implemented, there is roughly a 20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4°C by 2100. If they are not met, a warming of 4°C could occur as early as the 2060s. Such a warming level and associated sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, or more, by 2100 would not be the end point: a further warming to levels over 6°C, with several meters of sea-level rise, would likely occur over the following centuries

Evaluating the sustainability of urban agriculture projects

Evaluating the sustainability of urban agriculture projects. 5. International Symposium for Farming Systems Design (AGRO2015