Lately, prolonged periods of drought have resulted in significant yield losses in fruit trees. Projected climate change scenarios are not encouraging, predicting an increase in frequency, duration, and severity of drought episodes, threatening further the Danish fruit industry.

Faced with this new challenge, the Danish growers lack the tools and knowledge to protect their trees from drought. An obvious solution to mitigate problems associated with drought would be to irrigate plants; however, irrigation is expensive and not sustainable in the long term, as there is already large competition for good quality water amongst water users – a competition that is expected to increase further in the future.

Upon that, some fruit growers in Denmark do not have irrigation, while those that do have access, may be restricted by the amount of water that can pump from the soil. An alternative and sustainable approach, however, is to leverage the variation that exists in drought tolerance among apple cultivars and rootstocks and to explore promising and economic management practices, such as biostimulants, arbuscular mycorrhiza, and compost, which they have shown their potential in protecting annual crops against drought stress, but they have not been tested on temperate fruit trees in a northern climate.

FruitAdapt will develop efficient and sustainable tools and practices to mitigate the adverse effects of drought on fruit tree production and to future-proof the Danish fruit industry. 

Project period: Sept. 16, 2024  –  Aug. 31, 2028