Downy mildew outbreaks on grapevine under climate change: elaboration and application of an empirical-statistical model

The global climate is changing. Much research has already been carried out to assess the potential impacts of climate change on plant physiology. However, effects on plant disease have not yet been deeply studied. In this paper, an empirical disease model for primary infection of downy mildew on grapevine was elaborated and used to project future disease dynamics under climate change. The disease model was run under the outputs of the General Circulation Model (GCM) and future scenarios of downy mildew primary outbreaks were generated at several sites all over the word for three future dates: 2030, 2050, 2080. Results suggested a potential general advance of first disease outbreaks, both in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, for all three future decades considered. The advance is predicted to be from about a minimum of one day in South Africa in 2030 to a maximum of 28 days in Chile and China in 2080. The advance in the outbreak time could lead to more severe infections, due to the polycyclic nature of the pathogen. Therefore, changes in the timing and frequency of fungicide treatments could be expected in the future, with a possible increase in the costs of disease management.