An‑Gel pilot trial – Soil management strategies to reduce frost in apple orchards

Climate change is altering crop development cycles, leading to milder winters that advance flowering. This increases the exposure of crops to spring frosts during particularly sensitive stages, which can result in losses of up to 100% in productions such as orchards or vineyards.

In the SUDOE area, many farms do not have 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 and sustainable solutions, as well as improving the adaptive capacity of the agricultural sector to frost events.

Pilot trial

The pilot trial is carried out in an apple orchard under real production conditions, distributed across several plots with commercial varieties such as Fujion and Gaïa. The production system includes drip irrigation, organic management, and protection systems such as anti‑hail nets, allowing solutions to be tested in a representative farming context.

The objective of the pilot is to analyze the effect of soil moisture and ground cover management on the intensity of spring frosts. To this end, a more complex experimental design has been implemented compared to other crops, based on the comparison of four soil management approaches:

• Modality 1: soil without prior irrigation before frost events, with mowed ground cover between rows and mechanical weeding along the crop row.
• Modality 2: soil without prior irrigation, without mowing between rows or mechanical weeding, allowing the effect of denser vegetation cover to be assessed.
• Modality 3: soil irrigated before the frost event and maintained close to field capacity, combined with mowing between rows and mechanical weeding along the row.
• Modality 4: soil irrigated beforehand but without ground cover management, with vegetation present both between and within the rows.

This design allows for a combined analysis of soil moisture and vegetation cover, assessing both individual practices and their interaction in the thermal behavior of the orchard.

The trial also incorporates a monitoring system with weather stations and soil sensors, recording climatic and soil variables to accurately evaluate the relationship between soil conditions, orchard microclimate, and frost severity.

Actions and impact

The actions carried out in the pilot focus on testing soil management practices as passive solutions against frost, reducing reliance on resource‑intensive techniques. Continuous monitoring of climatic and soil conditions is also conducted, along with the analysis of the collected data.

The expected impact is the identification of effective and sustainable strategies to reduce damage caused by spring frosts in apple orchards. These practices can be transferred to other farms and territories, contributing to strengthening the resilience of the agricultural sector to climate change and supporting decision‑making at both technical and policy levels.