Abstract: Climate change and its associated higher frequency and severity of adverse weather events require genotypic adaptation. Process-based ecophysiological modelling offers a powerful means to better target and accelerate development of new crop cultivars. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L) is an important crop throughout the world, and a good model for study of the genetics of stress adaptation because many quantitative trait loci and candidate genes for biotic and abiotic stress tolerance have been identified in it. Here, we developed a new approach to design future crop ideotypes using an ensemble of eight barley simulation models (i.e. APSIM, CropSyst, HERMES, MCWLA, MONICA, SIMPLACE, Sirius Quality, and WOFOST), and applied it to design climate-resilient barley ideotypes for Boreal and Mediterranean climatic zones in Europe. The results showed that specific barley genotypes, represented by sets of cultivar parameters in the crop models, could be promising under future climate change conditions, resulting in increased yields and low inter-annual yield variability. In contrast, other genotypes could result in substantial yield declines. The most favorable climate-zone-specific barley ideotypes were further proposed, having combinations of several key genetic traits in terms of phenology, leaf growth, photosynthesis, drought tolerance, and grain formation. For both Boreal and Mediterranean climatic zones, barley ideotypes under future climatic conditions should have a longer reproductive growing period, lower leaf senescence rate, larger radiation use efficiency or maximum assimilation rate, and higher drought tolerance. Such characteristics can produce substantial positive impacts on yields under contrasting conditions. Moreover, barley ideotypes should have a low photoperiod and high vernalization sensitivity for the Boreal climatic zone; for the Mediterranean, in contrast, it should have a low photoperiod and low vernalization sensitivity. The drought-tolerance trait is more beneficial for the Mediterranean than for the Boreal climatic zone. Our study demonstrates a sound approach to design future barley ideotypes based on an ensemble of well-tested, diverse crop models and on integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines. The robustness of model-aided ideotypes design can be further enhanced by continuously improving crop models and enhancing information exchange between modellers, agro-meteorologists, geneticists, physiologists, and plant breeders. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: The main objective of CAP Direct payments (DP) has been to increase and stabilise farm income together with a large number of additional goals (Gardner, 1991). Despite its importance, there are limited empirical evidences on farm income variability over time at farm level apart Vrolijk and Poppe (2008) and Vrolijk, de Bont, van der Veen, and Poppe (2009). The analysis focuses of the following research questions:•     What is the amount of the support provided by DP? How the income of Italian farms will be affected by reductions of DP levels?•     What is the extent of farm income variability over time? Is it the same in all types of farms?•     Where is this variability coming from?•     Do CAP direct payments reduce farm income variability? How do DP affect it? Are DP targeted to stabilise the income of those farms facing larger income variability? The analysis has been developed on the individual farms belonging to the whole Italian sample of the EU FADN farms during all years of the decade 2003-2012. The variability of farm income (FI) is assessed by calculating variance and Coefficient of Variation (CV) over the 10 year period for each farm for each relevant income component. The role of DP on income stabilisation is assessed by means of variance decomposition by income sources (Burt and Finley, 1968; El Benni and Finger, 2013; Mishra and El-Osta, 2001).The presence of DP allows for a reduction of the variability of farm income: the variability of FI when DP are not accounted for is higher than that of the whole FI. Finally, DP seem to be not targeted to those farms facing the highest level of market income variability. These results support the hypothesis that there is a potentially large room for better design the DP policy to reduce income variability. No Label

Abstract: Explorations of future land use change are important to understand potential conflicts between competing land uses, trade-offs associated with particular land change trajectories, and the effectiveness of policies to steer land systems into desirable states. Most model-based explorations and scenario studies focused on conversions in broad land use classes, but disregarded changes in land management or focused on individual sectors only. Using the European Union (EU) as a case study, we developed an approach to identifying typical combinations of land cover and management changes by combining the results of multimodel simulations in the agriculture and forest sectors for four scenarios from 2000 to 2040. We visualized land change trajectories by mapping regional hotspots of change. Land change trajectories differed in extent and spatial pattern across the EU and among scenarios, indicating trajectory-specific option spaces for alternative land system outcomes. In spite of the large variation in the area of change, similar hotspots of land change were observed among the scenarios. All scenarios indicate a stronger polarization of land use in Europe, with a loss of multifunctional landscapes. We analyzed locations subject to change by comparing location characteristics associated with certain land change trajectories. Results indicate differences in the location conditions of different land change trajectories, with diverging impacts on ecosystem service provisioning. Policy and planning for future land use needs to account for the spatial variation of land change trajectories to achieve both overarching and location-specific targets.