Modeling climate change impact on potato crop phenology, and risk of frost damage and heat stress in northern Europe

The future simulations indicated that a warmer climate and earlier planting may move the timing of harvest up to 1 month earlier, however, potato emergence early in the year will be associated with an increased risk of frost damage in most parts of northern Europe. The areas of west Europe most prone to frost damage today may experience a risk of frost damage in response to climate change. The simulation of early potato development was sensitive to the setting of the developmental threshold, while late potato development was sensitive to the optimum temperature setting. While a linear temperature response function is essentially sufficient for current climate conditions in northern Europe, optimum and upper thresholds should be considered in climate change impact assessments. The potato model runs with temperature data corrected according to quantile-mapping indicated in general a slightly higher risk of temperature stress than the corresponding runs with temperature data corrected by linear scaling.