fruclimadapt: An R package for climate adaptation assessment of temperate fruit species

Climate strongly determines the growing range of fruit plant species that can be grown successfully in an area, and also the cultivars that will perform best. Therefore, the assessment of the adequacy of a climate is critical for decision-making in the design of fruit orchards and vineyards, and also for the evaluation of the potential consequences of future climate on fruit production. Bioclimatic indices and plant phenology models are commonly used to assess the suitability of climate for growing quality fruit and to provide temporal and spatial information about regarding ongoing and future changes. In this paper, we present fruclimadapt, a flexible and versatile package in the R language that streamlines the assessment of climate adaptation and the identification of potential risks for grapevines and fruit trees. A core set of functions allows to assess climate adaptation of fruit tree species by calculating specific bioclimatic index values and to evaluate potential threats to yield and fruit quality. Three additional sets of functions have been included as companions to: i) downscale daily meteorological values to hourly data, ii) estimate winter chill and forcing heat accumulation and iii) estimate the occurrence of phenological phases. fruclimadapt is currently available from the CRAN website (https://cran. r-project.org/package=fruclimadapt).

Automated summary

Climate plays a crucial role in determining the success of growing fruit plant species and cultivars in an area. Assessment of climate adaptation is essential for decision-making in designing fruit orchards and vineyards, as well as evaluating the potential impacts of future climate change on fruit production. Various tools, including bioclimatic indices and plant phenology models, are commonly used to assess climate suitability and provide information on ongoing and future changes. The fruclimadapt software package in R language streamlines the assessment of climate adaptation and identification of potential risks for grapevines and fruit trees.