VISCA project has co-designed, co-developed and validated a Climate Service and a Decision Support System (VISCA CS-DSS) to help wine growers adapt to climate change. It includes the following services:
• Weather forecast with two timescales: short-term (2 days ahead) and mid-term (10 days ahead). These forecast services have been designed to provide specific weather information to plan daily activities as well as to anticipate extreme events like spring frost, heat waves, strong winds or heavy precipitation by using high-resolution downscaling approaches (D2.2).
• Seasonal forecast consists of a multi-model forecast of seasonal climate up to 6 months ahead (D2.1).
• Phenological forecast that includes a bud-break model, a berry model (predicting flowering and veraison) and a leaf model (predicting vegetative growth of the plant including the berries and their ripening) (D2.3).
• Irrigation recommendations, that provide irrigation forecasts considering plan water demands, past weather observations, weather forecasts and water stress strategy (D2.4).
All these services are operational and can be visualized through the VISCA Data Platform, in which the user can consult the output of the services and at the same time provide feedback with actual data from the field (D3.4).
All services developed have been validated in the field at three pilot sites in Portugal, Spain and Italy. In addition, two innovative crop management techniques have been tested: crop forcing and shoot trimming to observe their added value in fight against climate change (D4.8).
VISCA project has also developed regional climate projections European-wide and for specific validation sites, extracting interesting conclusions about vine suitability in the coming decades (D2.5).
METEOSIM will take the lead in bringing VISCA outcomes to the market, acting as reseller of the whole solution. All the developed services and VISCA Data Platform can be used independently..
VISCA consortium has disseminated VISCA results through project website, social media presence, organisation of workshops, promotional materials (VISCA booklet of results, brochures, roll-ups, presentations), scientific publications, press releases, e-newsletters, presence in dedicated events, among others.
Future work comprises adding other complementing services like disease management and the replicability of VISCA for other grape varieties and agricultural crops such as olives, rice, cereals, facing similar challenges.
