Activity 2

Assessment of biophysical impacts of climate change on quality and production of crops of Trentino

1. Direct effect of climate change on quality and production indices. Identification of algorithms predicting phenological stages, climate-dependent quality and production indices for crops of interest existing in Trentino (apple, grapevine, strawberries, and other berries and some horticultural crops).

2. Genomics to phenology: effect of climate change (ontogenic resistance). Description of the onset of ontogenic resistance in apple leaves in relation to temperature. Identification of the gene set which is expressed at the change from susceptibility to resistance and possibly identification of molecular mRNA based marker for this particular phase.

3. Genomics to plant health: effect of climate change on plant self-protection (induced resistance). Assessments of impact of temperature and drought (water stress) on induced resistance in grapevine. In fact in some host-pathogen systems resistance is reduced under drought conditions.

4. Indirect effect of climate change on fruit quality.

5. Indirect effect of climate change on food quality (mycotoxins contamination).

6. Evaluation of agro-ecological quality: biodiversity and biocontrol under climate change.