Exploring the Impacts of Climatic Change on Perennial Crop Species

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Climate change impacts on agricultural systems are predicted to be a major impediment to meeting the needs of the growing global population. In comparison to annual crops, perennial crops are little studied and thus the impacts of changing climate is less well understood on species such as grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) and cacoa (Theobroma cacao L.). However, with increasing temporal and spatial resolution of datasets including new satellite measurements and climate models, the data are now available to start to predict the impact of changing climate on non-annual systems on an agriculturally relevant scale using both the changes in mean and extreme climates. As a result, this project will use mechanistic modelling to better understand how, for better or worse, climate change will affect the yield and quality of perennial crops. This will subsequently enable the production of mitigation strategies which will be used to help inform the future production of perennial crops. This project falls under the BBSRC Strategic Priority Area of 'Agriculture and Food Security', incorporating the responsive mode priorities 'Sustainably enhancing agricultural production' and 'Systems approaches to the biosciences'.