Wine grape diversity and climate change

A study examines how wine grape cultivar diversity alters climate change-related projections of winegrowing regions. Global warming is expected to harm agriculture by reducing yields, but increasing crop diversity may help counter some of the potential damage. Ignacio Morales-Castilla and colleagues examined historical data from 1956 to 2015 in Europe, largely from France, of 11 cultivars of wine grapes with high diversity. The authors combined the data, which focused on budbreak, flowering, and ripening onset, with global planting data and temperature records from 1880 to 2013 to create models forecasted for global warming scenarios in 2006-2100. In a scenario in which Earth warms by 2 °C, 56% of all identified regions growing wine grapes would be lost if cultivar turnover did not occur, though cultivar diversity would reduce projected losses by 57%. Under a 4 °C warming scenario, 85% of all identified wine-growing regions would be lost if cultivar turnover did not occur, though cultivar diversity would reduce losses by 32%. However, the authors found that cultivar diversity alone may not be sufficient to prevent wine grape declines in the most vulnerable regions. The findings suggest that cultivar diversity can reduce agricultural losses from global warming, although its effectiveness would decline considerably if the warmest scenarios materialize, according to the authors.

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Article #19-06731: "Diversity buffers winegrowing regions from climate change losses," by Ignacio Morales-Castilla et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: Ignacio Morales-Castilla, University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, SPAIN; email: ignacio.moralesc@uah.es; Elizabeth M. Wolkovich, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CANADA; email: e.wolkovich@ubc.ca

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