Climate change is altering crop development cycles, leading to milder winters that advance bud break. This increases the vulnerability of plants to spring frosts, which affect crops at critical stages and can cause significant losses in fruit production.
In the SUDOE area, many farms lack effective solutions to address this risk. Available techniques are often costly, energy‑intensive, or dependent on water use. In this context, the Interreg An‑Gel SUDOE project promotes the development and testing of innovative, sustainable, and transferable solutions to improve the resilience of the agricultural sector to frost events.
The pilot trial is carried out in a kiwi orchard under real production conditions, allowing the practical applicability of the proposed solutions to be assessed. The plot includes commercial varieties such as Hayward and Sorelli and presents characteristics representative of this type of crop, including irrigation and protection systems commonly used in kiwi production.
The objective of the pilot is to analyze the influence of soil moisture and ground cover management on the intensity of spring frosts. To this end, an experimental design has been established based on the comparison of two soil management approaches:
This experimental design allows for the analysis of the direct effect of soil water content on the thermal behavior of the crop, as well as its capacity to mitigate low temperatures during frost events.
The trial also includes a monitoring system with weather stations and soil sensors that record climatic and soil variables, enabling a precise assessment of the relationship between environmental conditions and frost severity.
The actions carried out within the pilot focus on testing soil management strategies as passive solutions against frost, reducing the need to rely on resource‑intensive techniques. In addition, continuous monitoring of climatic and soil conditions is performed, along with the analysis of the collected data.
The expected impact is the identification of effective, sustainable, and low‑cost agronomic practices to reduce damage caused by spring frosts in kiwi production. These solutions can be transferred to other farmers and regions, helping to strengthen the resilience of the agricultural sector to climate change and supporting decision‑making at both technical and policy levels.
