Improving vineyard resilience: adapting to extreme heat and drought conditions in dry farming

The Mediterranean region is experiencing some of climate change’s most intense effects on European agriculture, including more frequent extreme heat, droughts, loss of biodiversity and increasing water needs. This is particularly concerning for perennial fruit crops such as grapevines, which cover substantial areas and are increasingly affected by these changes. Farmers are adjusting their practices to cope, but many of these solutions remain confined to specific regions or agricultural sectors. The EU-funded CLIMED-FRUIT project is working to bridge this gap by collecting and sharing innovative, climate-adaptive practices from various European agricultural operational groups (OGs) to enhance resilience and promote effective climate change adaptation and mitigation. Increased temperatures and unpredictable rainfall patterns are causing substantial declines in fruit productivity and quality. Sustainable practices and climate-adaptive technologies, including shading nets, foliar applications, and drought-resistant varieties, are essential to counter these effects.This article presents a non-exhaustive list of experimental results from projects carried out across Europe and identified in the framework of the CLIMED-FRUIT project.