Sigridur Dalmannsdottir
Forsker
(+47) 465 46 249
sigridur.dalmannsdottir@nibio.no
Sted
Tromsø
Besøksadresse
Holtvegen 66, 9016 Tromsø
Sammendrag
In Norway, agroclimatic zones (ACZs) are a valuable tool for national analyses in subject areas concerning the optimized management of agricultural land resources. However, current Norwegian ACZs have been criticized for having an outdated standard climate normal (1931–1960), a limited representation of the local climatic variation, a lack of important model parameters, and weak methodological documentation. Therefore, this paper presents new ACZs for Norway that address these weaknesses. The most significant methodological updates are the use of the standard climate normal of 1991–2020, additional weather data variables, the downscaling of weather data to 250 m hexagons, and the incorporation of phenological crop models for spring wheat, spring barley, and forage grass. The grass model was calibrated with the number of grass harvests at research stations, while the grain models were calibrated with subsidy claim data. The modeled zones for the three crops were combined into the general ACZs. Example maps of the crop zones and new ACZs for the selected regions and the whole country are presented. The new ACZs are more robust, agronomically relevant, and better aligned with the current climatic conditions in Norway. The deliberate exclusion of factors other than climate ensures the new ACZs’ national comparability and their applicability in policy development, land-use planning, climate adaptation, and agronomic assessments at the national scale.
Forfattere
Akhil Reddy Pashapu Sigridur Dalmannsdottir Marit Jørgensen Mallikarjuna Rao Kovi Odd Arne RognliSammendrag
Timothy is the most important perennial forage grass species in northern Norway, a region that is predicted to experience variable winter weather conditions due to climate change. Knowledge about how timothy cultivars respond to a changing climate is crucial for safeguarding forage production at higher latitudes. In the current study, we investigated changes in gene expression under freezing and ice encasement stresses and SNP allele frequencies between temporal populations (seed generations) of the two northern-adapted timothy cultivars Engmo and Noreng. In general, there was a decrease in freezing tolerance (defined as LT 50 , the temperature lethal to 50% of the population) and an increase in ice encasement tolerance (defined as LD 50 , the duration lethal to 50% of the population) over time. Comparative transcriptome analyses identified several genes known to be involved in stress responses, such as ethylene-responsive transcription factors, dehydration-responsive element binding transcription factors, reversion to ethylene sensitivity 1, and abscisic acid repressor 1, as differentially expressed between the temporal populations of Noreng under freezing stress. Several loci with large allele frequency changes were observed to be in close proximity to the genes displaying patterns resembling shifts over time in Noreng. Very few gene expression differences between populations of both cultivars under ice encasement stress could be due to weak selection pressure during seed multiplication. There was a gradual decline in genetic diversity in populations of both cultivars over time. The results indicate that phytohormone-mediated transcriptional regulation might be one of the key mechanisms for adaptation to changing winter weather conditions at higher latitudes. These findings underscore the importance of monitoring genetic shifts during seed multiplication to maintain cultivar stability and suggest that the identified stress-responsive genes could serve as valuable targets for breeding climate-resilient forage crops.
Sammendrag
Verdiprøving av fôrvekster er en forvaltningsoppgave som NIBIO gjennomfører på oppdrag fra og etter retningslinjer gitt av Mattilsynet (www.mattilsynet.no). Målet er å framskaffe resultater for godkjenning av nye sorter for opptak på offisiell norsk sortsliste. Prøvingen er en kontinuerlig, ikke tidsavgrenset prøving. Flerårige arter legges ut tre ganger med tre registrerings- og høsteår etter hvert utlegg. Artene blir som hovedregel prøvd i fem distrikter: Østlandet, Fjellbygdene, Vestlandet, Midt-Norge og Nord-Norge. I 2025 var det kandidatsorter av artene engsvingel/raisvingel, Westerwoldsk raigras og Italiensk raigras som var ferdig testet. I alt seks sorter var ferdig testet, hvor en sort av engsvingel, en av raisvingel, en av Italiensk raigras og en av Westerwoldsk raigras ble anbefalt godkjent.
