Snowed in for survival

Overwintering crops have the potential of producing high yields but are often exposed to adverse winter conditions. Damage to overwintering crops can be caused not only by cold spells, but also by extended snow cover and frequent freeze-thaw cycles.

Snow play crucial role

The highest risk of damage is at latitudes with intermediate temperatures and snow, where temperatures are often rather cold but snow cover is intermittent and, as such, does not effectively shield the crop. That is demonstrated in an article in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology that Giulia Vico and Martin Weih at the department of Crop Production Ecology have written together with a collegue. The snow plays thus a crucial role.

Model

Four indices were developed to quantify the different aspects of the risk of winter damage to overwintering crops, assessing separately the roles of crop hardening ability, temperature, and snow. The framework was applied to winter wheat under climatic conditions typical of southern and central Sweden, but can be easily extended to other crops/locations. It is then imperative to develop modelling approaches as the proposed one, requiring few physically based parameters (routinely available meteorological data and variety-specific response to temperature inferred from controlled-condition experiments).