Preliminary Result of Uncertainty on Variation of Flowering Date of Kiwifruit: Case Study of Kiwifruit Growing Area of Jeonlanam-do

ABSTRACTIt is highly anticipated that warming temperature resulting from global climate change will affect the phenological pattern of kiwifruit, which has been commercially grown in Korea since the early 1980s. Here, we present the potential impacts of climate change on the variations of flowering day of a gold kiwifruit cultivar, Haegeum, in the Jeonnam Province, Korea. By running six global climate models (GCM), the results from this study emphasize the uncertainty in climate change scenarios. To predict the flowering day of kiwifruit, we obtained three parameters of the ‘Chill-day’ model for the simulation of Haegeum: 6.3 o C for the base temperature ( Tb ), 102.5 for chill requirement ( Rc ), and 575 for heat requirement ( Rh ). Two separate validations of the resulting ‘Chill-day’ model were conducted. First, direct comparisons were made between the observed flowering days collected from 25 kiwifruit orchards for two years (2014-15) and the simulated flowering days from the ‘Chill-day’ model using weather data from four weather stations near the 25 orchards. The estimation error between the observed and simulated flowering days was 5.2 days. Second, the model was simulated using temperature data extracted, for the 25 orchards, from a high-resolution digital temperature map, resulting in the error of 3.4 days. Using the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 climate change scenarios from six GCMs for the period of 2021-40, the future flowering days were simulated with the ‘Chill-day’ model. The predicted flowering days of Haegeum in Jeonnam were advanced more than 10 days compared to the present ones from multi-model ensemble, while some individual models resulted in quite different magnitudes of impacts, indicating the multi-model ensemble accounts for uncertainty better than individual climate models. In addition, the current flowering period of Haegeum in Jeonnam Province was predicted to expand northward, reaching over Jeonbuk and Chungnam Provinces. This preliminary result will provide a basis for the local impact assessment of climate change as more phenology models are developed for other fruit trees.