IPHEN – ITALIAN PHENOLOGICAL NETWORK
For a national phenological cartography 
The IPHEN project started in 2006 following the instances arisen during the National Phenology Workshop held at CRA-CMA in Rome at the end of 2005. Its main goals are: - phenology data collection following established international standards - production and broadcast of analysis and forecast maps of phenological course for different species - promotion of data/knowledge exchanges between phenologists; - interaction with other European and international experiences; - use of phenological and meteorological data to study climate variability and change (in connection with AGROSCENARI research project). The project involves phenologists belonging to Universities, Agricultural Research Council (CRA), National Research Council (CNR), regional and local agrometeorological services, agricultural extension services, Italian Association of Aerobiology (AIA) and the Italian Agrometeorological Association (AIAM). At present IPHEN focuses on the following plant species due to their agricultural, allergologic and ornamental importance: - Vitis vinifera L. (cv: Cabernet Sauvignon e Chardonnay) - Cupressus sempervirens L. - Cupressus arizonica G - Sambucus nigra L. - Robinia pseudoacacia L. - Olea europaea L. The phenological maps production is mainly based on a Normal Heat Hours (NHH) approach (Mariani et al., 2007; Failla et al., 2008), similar to the chill units approach: thermal resources are translated into normal hours sums collected by a given plant species at a given time. The logical sequence for maps production is: - data from CRA-Cma network (92 stations partly belonging to the Italian Air Force) are gathered - daily Italian maps of maximum and minimum temperatures (cells with a resolution of 2x2 km in geographical coordinates) are produced, spatializing station data by means of the Shepard’s method applied to data previously homogenized for height and aspect - hourly temperatures are obtained for every single map cell by means of the Parton e Logan algorithm (Parton e Logan, 1981; Cesaraccio et al., 2001) - NHH are produced on the base of hourly temperatures - NHH sums from a given starting date until the day of analysis are calculated and the corresponding BBCH phase is obtained by means of empirical relations between historical data of both phenology and NHH sums. Hence a first guess maps is produced - The final maps is the result of a correction procedure fed with data collected by IPHEN observers acting on the whole Italian area. Forecast maps are based on the reversion of the empirical NHH-BBCH equations applied to the analysis maps in order to obtain NHH sums for the analysis date. Forecast for the first ten days are based on temperature data coming from NOAA global numerical weather prediction model (GFS) for medium range weather forecast. Forecasts until the end of season are based on climatology (ten days maps from 1993-2009 CRA-CMA network time series). Maps production activity is based on a prototypal software in DELPHI environment developed and managed by the agrometeorological research group of the Crop Science Department of the University of Milan. For further information or to join the project please contact Chiara Epifani (chiara.epifani@entecra.it) or Gabriele Cola (gabiele.cola@unimi.it). REFERENCES Cesaraccio, C., D. Spano, P. Duce and R.L. Snyder. 2001. An improved model for degree-days values from temperature data. Int. J. Biometeorol. 45, 161-169 Mariani, L, Failla, O, Dal Monte, G, Facchinetti, D., 2007. IPHEN: a model for real time production of grapevine phenological maps. In: Proceedings of the Climate and viticulture congress. Zaragoza, 10-14 April 2007. pp 272-278. Failla, O, Mariani, L, Dal Monte, G, Facchinetti, D., 2008. Real Time Production Of Phenological Maps For Italy The Experience Of The Iphen Network, Proceedings of the X ESA Congress, Bologna, 15 - 19 september 2008. Parton W.J., Logan J.A., 1981. A model for diurnal variation in soil and air temperature, Meteorol., 23, 205-216. Shepard D., 1968. A two-dimensional interpolation function for irregularly-spaced data. Proceedings of the 1968 ACM National Conference. pp. 517–524. PARTNERS (updated to al 2010) Cra - Unità di ricerca per la climatologia e la meteorologia applicate all’agricoltura (Roma) (CRACMA) - Centro di ricerca per la viticoltura (Conegliano TV) (CRA-VIT) - Centro di ricerca per l’olivicoltura e l’industria olearia (Rende) (CRA-OLI) - Unità di ricerca per l’uva da tavola e la vitivinicoltura in ambiente mediterraneo (Turi BA) (CRAUTV) Universities - Università degli Studi di Bologna - Facoltà di Agraria, Dip. di Biologia Evoluzionistica; Dip. di Produzione Vegetale, Dip. di Scienze e Tecnologie Agroambientali - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Università degli Studi di Firenze Centro Interdipartimentale di Bioclimatologia CIBIC-UNIFI - Università degli Studi di Milano – Facoltà di Agraria Dipartimento di Produzione Vegetale - Università degli Studi di Palermo (Motisi) - Università degli Studi di Pisa - Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerche Agro-Ambientali "Enrico Avanzi" - Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata – Dip. di Biologia - Università degli Studi di Udine - Università degli Studi di Sassari - Università degli Studi dell’Aquila – Dip. di Scienze Ambientali - Università degli Studi di Torino Other research institutes - Fondazione Edmund Mach - S. Michele, Trento CNR - Istituto di Biometeorologia Ibimet Associations AIA - Associazione Italiana di Aerobiologia www.ilpolline.it AIAM - Associazione Italiana di Agrometeorologia. www.agrometeorologia.it Unaapi, Unione Nazionale Associazioni Apicoltori Italiani www.mieliditalia.it Agrometeorological services and agricultural extension services - Regione Sicilia – Servizio Informativo Agrometeorologico Siciliano - Regione Calabria - Arssa Calabria – Servizio Agrometeorologico - Regione Emilia Romagna - Arpa Emilia Romagna - Servizio Idrometeorologico - Regione Lazio - ARSIAL - Consorzio di Difesa di Brindisi CODIVABRI - Regione Sardegna - Arpa Sardegna - Regione Liguria – Ass.to Agricoltura, Settore Servizi alle Imprese Agricole C.A.A.R. (Centro di Agrometeorologia Applicata Regionale) - Regione Piemonte - Ass.to Agricoltura - Regione Val d’Aosta - Institut Agricole Régional - Amministrazione Provinciale di Pesaro ed Urbino (Ufficio Ambiente - Serv.4.3) |