ARI Biennial Review for 2018-2019

Adjustment of irrigation schedules as a strategy to mitigate climate change impacts on agriculture in Cyprus This study explored the seasonal or monthly changes in crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and net irrigation requirements (NIR) of a number of permanent and annual crops over two consecutive overlapping periods (1976–2000 and 1990–2014). While the differences in the seasonal ETc and NIR estimates were not statistically significant between the studied periods, differences were identified via a month-by-month comparison. In March, the water demands of crops appeared to be significantly greater during the recent past in relation to 1976–2000, while for NIR, March showed statistically significant increases, and September showed significant decreases. Consequently, the adjustment of irrigation schedules to climate change by farmers should not rely on annual trends as an eventual mismatch of monthly crop water needs with irrigation water supply might affect the critical growth stages of crops with a disproportionately greater negative impact on yields and quality. The clear increase in irrigation needs in March coincides with the most sensitive growth stage of irrigated potato crops in Cyprus. Therefore, the results may serve as a useful tool for current and future adaptation measures. ( P. Dalias, A. Christou, D. Neocleous ) SOIL FERTILITY IMPROVEMENT Digital maps could become tools of adaptation and mitigation to climate change and support many environmental applications because they have important qualities. Τhey can be easily updated, they require digital space for storage, which is practically unlimited, they do not have the same scale limitations as paper maps, they allow filtering for specific features, they can be linked with simulation models or calculation spreadsheets and they are dynamic. Soil fertility mapping In 2019, a new internal (ARI) project has been initiated aiming at the production of soil fertility maps, illustrating the geographic variation of soil physical and chemical properties or indices (e.g. pH, EC, organic C available P, available K). It is being carried out in coordination with the external (RIF, restart 2016-2020) project “MAGNET”, 53 NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT