Simone Orlandini

University of Florence | UNIFI · Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI)

Assessing the environmental impact of agriculture is a key factor towards reducing human impacts on the food production chain. Because of the growing consumer interest in healthy foods cultivated with low-impact approach, a study assessing the impacts of ancient wheat variety in organic and conventional farming appears to be of great importance. Th...

This paper describes the relationships between large-scale modes of climate variability and its related weather types with the fluctuations in the yield of maize crops in Veneto, Italy. The teleconnections analysed in this work are the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the summer North Atlantic Oscillation (SNAO); the West African monsoon...

ABSTRACT: Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a herbaceous C3 crop that demonstrates its resilience in regions concurrently affected by climate change and food insecurity, such as sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The photosynthetic rate and the productivity of C3 crops are enhanced under increasing CO2 concentrations. We first looked at future climate t...

The paper presents results from a study examining the relationship between large-scale modes of climate variability with the fluctuations in the yield of barley, durum wheat, olives and sunflower crops in Tuscany, Italy. In particular, the blocking circulation over the growing season, with associated hot and dry conditions, decreased yield for oliv...

The resilience of quinoa to drought stress conditions makes the crop suitable for the Sahel region. It can support grain production during the dry season and be considered an alternative crop for alleviating food insecurity within the region. Given the importance of this crop outside the indigenous cultivation area, there is a requisite for the dev...

Agricultural land set up systems comprise those agronomic structures able to preserve the soil fertility from water erosion, such as: ditching, contouring, earth-riser and stonewall terracing, draining, and channelization, etc.. However, in the past 60 years, agricultural mechanization has led to an expansion of the field size and reduction in land...

It is essential to investigate to which extent and how specifically soil-plant-microbe interactions can be conditioned by different agricultural practices. Legumes such as Vicia faba is one of the essential functional group in intercropping and crop rotations due to its higher N fixing capacity. Hence, it is important to study the living microbial...

The present study developed a method to use RapidEye satellite information for N management in durum wheat cultivation. The estimation of the N status was based on the development of Nitrogen Nutrition Index (NNI), referred to as the ratio between actual N concentration (Nac) and the minimum N content required to obtain maximum biomass (critical N...

A preliminary study was conducted to analyze the sustainability of barley production through: (i) investigating sensor-based nitrogen (N) application on barley performance, compared with conventional N management (CT); (ii) assessing the potential of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) at different growth stages for within-season pred...

The aim of this study is to evaluate human thermal comfort in different green area settings in the city of Florence by using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI). Field measurements of air temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity, wind speed and black globe thermometer were collected during hot summer days in various parts of Cascine P...

The Sahel region is considered a hotspot for climate change hazards and vulnerability of weather reliant sectors, including agriculture. Farmers in Burkina Faso have a long history of adapting their farming activities to frequent changes in climate. Using 150 in-person surveys, this study assesses farmers’ perceptions of climate change based on mul...

The effect of heat stress on quinoa (cv. Titicaca) under controlled climatic conditions. Abstract Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is capable of adapting to multiple environments and tolerating abiotic stresses including saline, drought and frost stress conditions. However, the introduction of quinoa into new environments has disclosed adaptation...

Proximal optical sensors (POSs) are effective devices for monitoring the development of crops and the nitrogen (N) status of plants. POSs are both useful and necessary in facilitating the reduction of N losses into the environment and in attaining higher nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). To date, no comparison of these instruments has been made on qui...

Abstract. Soil contamination by trace elements (TEs) is a major concern for sustainable land management. One potential source of excessive inputs of TEs into agricultural soils are organic amendments. Here, we use dynamic simulations carried out with the IDMM-ag model to describe observed trends of topsoil Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd concentrations in a long...

Agricultural intensification and soil mismanagement have been recognized among the main causes of soil erosion in Mediterranean climate areas such as the Arbia stream basin (Tuscany, Italy). This study aims at predicting soil loss from agricultural fields as it is essential for providing reliable information for prioritizing soil conservation measu...

Purpose Agricultural workers represent an important part of the population exposed to high heat-related health and productivity risks. This study aims to estimate the heat-related productivity loss (PL) for moderate work activities in sun and shady areas and evaluating the economic cost locally in an Italian farm and generally in the whole province...

Flour from old varieties are usually considered very weak flours, and thus difficult to use in breadmaking especially when processed as Italian “Tipo 2” flour. Hence, the aim of our study was to understand if agronomic treatments can be used to improve flour processability and the quality of three old wheat varieties. An experimental strip-plot sch...

Drought, heat stress, and unfavorable soil conditions are key abiotic factors affecting quinoa's growth and development. The aim of this research was to examine the effect of progressive drought and N-fertilization reduction on short-cycle varieties of quinoa (c.v. Titicaca) for different sowing dates during the dry season (from October to December...

Existing heat–health warning systems focus on warning vulnerable groups in order to reduce mortality. However, human health and performance are affected at much lower environmental heat strain levels than those directly associated with higher mortality. Moreover, workers are at elevated health risks when exposed to prolonged heat. This study descri...

A UV exclusion experiment was conducted on durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf. var. Claudio) grown in pots. Plants were grown under three different radiative treatments in greenhouses covered with plastic filters: Teflon, transparent to the entire region of natural UV‐visible sunlight (TEF); polyester, transparent above 312 nm (MYL, excluding UVB) an...

A research study was conducted in an open field tomato crop in order to: (i) Evaluate the capability of Sentinel-2 imagery to assess tomato canopy growth and its crop water requirements; and (ii) explore the possibility to predict crop water requirements by assimilating the canopy cover estimated by Sentinel-2 imagery into AquaCrop model. The pilot...

In recent years digital sensors have been successfully integrated on board Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to assess crop vigour, vegetation coverage, and to quantify the 'green-ness' of foliage as indirect measurements of crop nitrogen status. The classical approach of precision agriculture has involved the use of multispectral sensors onboard UAV...

Digestate is considered a sustainable opportunity to reduce environmental impact from fertilization, due to high content of nitrogen easily available for plants and for the low impact of its production. We tested liquid fraction of digestate from anaerobic digestion of pig slurries and urea, to assess the emissions of nitrous oxide and ammonia from...

In recent years, the certification of environmental sustainability has been adopted by a large number of farms. A wide range of recent literature proved consumers’ preference and willingness to pay (WTP) for certification claiming for reduced environmental impact of food production, whereas the literature on farmers’ preference for a specific schem...

Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of hazard events such as heat waves, with important effects in several European regions. It is of importance to consider overall effects as well as specific impact on vulnerable population groups such as outdoor workers. The agricultural and construction sectors represent two strategic occupat...

2019) Effect of drought and nitrogen fertilisation on quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) under field conditions in Abstract. Chenopodium quinoa (Willd.) is an herbaceous C3 crop originating in the Andean Altiplano. Quinoa possesses a great deal of genetic variability, can adapt to diverse climatic conditions, besides of having seeds with high nutri...

In a context of urban warming, the effects of trees on outdoor thermal stress are important even during the increasingly hot autumn season. This study examines the effects of a deciduous tree species (Tilia x europaea L) on surface temperature over different ground materials and in turn on human thermal comfort, with a particular focus on tree shad...

Interactions between model parameters and low spatiotemporal resolution of available data mean that conventional soil organic carbon (SOC) models are often affected by equifinality, with consequent uncertainty in SOC forecasts. Estimation of belowground C inputs is another major source of uncertainty in SOC modelling. Models are usually calibrated...

GPS collars for wildlife provide a large amount of spatio-temporal location data and are frequently equipped with sensors that record the animal-level environmental temperature at a schedulable sampling frequency. The simultaneous collection of environmental temperature and animal location may contribute not only to deepen the understanding of anim...

More than half of the world population lives nowadays in urban areas and that’s the reason why the quality of the urban environment has become a key issue for human health. In this context, it is important to estimate and document any action that contributes to improving thermal comfort and air quality. The aim of this paper is to present a system...

p>Digestate is considered a sustainable opportunity to reduce environmental impact from fertilization, due to high content of nitrogen easily available for plants and for the low impact of its production. We tested liquid fraction of digestate from anaerobic digestion of pig slurries and urea, to assess the emissions of nitrous oxide and ammonia fr...

Copper (Cu) is among the main contaminant of agricultural soil. The reclamation of Cu polluted soils can be achieved with phytoextraction even if, in general, plants are Cu-excluders and uncommon are Cu-accumulators. The research objectives were to establish the Cu removal capacity by arable and vegetable crops and to investigate the distribution o...

Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology is an introductory textbook for meteorology and climatology courses at faculties of agriculture and for agrometeorology and agroclimatology courses at faculties whose curricula include these subjects. Additionally, this book may be a useful source of information for practicing agronomists and all those inter...

Urban gardening mainly means growing edible vegetables in a town. This practice has been traditionally used for economic reasons (subsistence agriculture), but now it has also acquired educational, nutraceutical, therapeutic and social relevance. The educational aspect of urban gardening has been the subject of a proposal for the newly born Science...

The paper proposes a methodology to assess water consump- tion in urban agriculture. Green and blue water footprints were calculated for five selected community gardens (CGs) in Rome (Italy) based on weather, crops, and yields. Then, the water requirement for all the CGs of the city, identified by means of a geodatabase, was estimated. For a cultiv...

In the current study, for the main crops cultivated in the Campania region (South of Italy), three indicators were proposed and analysed. The blue water footprint (WFb), which gives an indication of the impact of irrigation on the water resource; the gross margin WFb (GMWFb), describing the economic productivity of irrigation; and the job WFb (JWFb...

The spatial prediction of growing stock volume is one of the most frequent application of remote sensing for supporting the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. For such a purpose data from active or passive sensors are used as predictor variables in combination with measures taken in the field in sampling plots. The Sentinel-2 (S2) satelli...

Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) into the atmosphere derived from the use of fertilisers is a serious issue for the sustainability of agricultural systems, also considering that the growing global demand for food requires an increasingly productive agriculture. Emissions dynamics are very variable and are determined by many factors and their recipro...

Rapid and unplanned urban growth is responsible for the continuous conversion of green or generally natural spaces into artificial surfaces. The high degree of imperviousness modifies the urban microclimate and no studies have quantified its influence on the surface temperature (ST) nearby residential building. This topic represents the aim of this...

During the past sixty years, the social and economic development causes a change of traditional activities and a movement of the population towards urbanized areas in different regions of Italy. The replacement of vegetated land surface with impervious surface areas changed the hydrologic fluxes of a drainage basin with important consequences on th...

Effect of UV radiation removing on wheat plants

Heatwaves (HWs) are one of the "natural" hazards with the greatest impact worldwide in terms of mortality and economic losses, and their effects may be exacerbated in large urban areas. For these reasons, more detailed analyses of urban HW trends represent a priority that cannot be neglected. In this study, HW trends were investigated during the wa...

The final goals of this study are : i) to parameterize crop models considering two Long Term Agro-Ecosystem experiments (LTAE) located in experimental farms of Foggia (FG) and Papiano, Perugia (PG), in Southern and Central Italy, respectively and ii) to evaluate the crop residue (CR) management as a strategy of adaptation and/or mitigation to clima...

Soil erosion is among the major processes that threaten agricultural soils, causing soil and organic matter losses, loss of inherent fertility, and water contamination. In this context, vineyards are the most erosion-prone lands in the Mediterranean region. The adoption of alternative soil management practices, such as the use of permanent grass, c...

Leaf wetness (LW) is a key environmental variable for the development of foliar fungal diseases of citrus. However, little information of LW duration (LWD) in Mediterranean citrus-growing areas is available. LWD in six canopy positions and two leaf sides was studied with visual observations and Spectrum LW sensors in a citrus orchard in Spain. The...

Crop growth and yield are affected by water use during the season: the green water footprint (WF) accounts for rain water, the blue WF for irrigation and the grey WF for diluting agri-chemicals. We calibrated crop yield for FAO’s water balance model “Aquacrop” at field level. We collected weather, soil and crop inputs for 45 locations for the perio...

Crop growth and yield are affected by water use during the season: the green water footprint (WF) accounts for rain water, the blue WF for irrigation and the grey WF for diluting agri-chemicals. We calibrated crop yield for FAO’s water balance model “Aquacrop” at field level. We collected weather, soil and crop inputs for 45 locations for the perio...

Models represent very powerful tools to describe biophysical responses to environmental conditions. Particularly, the application of modeling for the description of pests and diseases in agriculture represents an important step toward the better understanding of pest epidemiology as well as an opportunity to support farmers in optimizing crop prote...

Il lavoro presenta gli sviluppi di una proposta nata nell'ambito del Progetto Europeo BACCHUS rivolta agli agricoltori europei per l'individuazione di nuovi strumenti e servizi orientati alla gestione sostenibile dei vigneti. Concentrandosi su alcune soluzioni integrate per la comprensione e la valutazione multiscala di alcuni elementi, gli esempi...

The goal of the present study was to improve the CERES-wheat model simulation of grain protein concentration (GPC) for winter durum wheat and to use the model as a basis for the development of a GPC Simplified Forecasting Index (SFIpro). The performances of CERES-wheat, which is one of the most widespread crop simulation models, with (i) its standa...

Europe is, after Asia, the second largest producer of wheat in the world, and provides the largest share of barley. Wheat (and to a similar extent, barley) production in Europe increased by more than 6-fold during the 20th century. During the first half of the 20th century, this was driven by expanding the harvested area. This was followed, from th...

The issue of soil erosion is considered highly important by local administrators of the Chianti region. Thus, a methodology for predicting the long-term average annual soil loss, by using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in a Geographical Information System framework was developed and assessed. The rainfall and runoff erosivity fact...

The practice of urban agriculture is an answer to periods of economic and social crisis and it aims at producing food, especially vegetables, thus contributing to livelihood (even social) of people living in urban areas, where the access to natural resources is more limited. In this sense, urban agriculture is emerging as a new competitor for natur...

This paper reports the first results of a research developed in the context of the three-years (2013-16) research project “IC-FAR - Linking long term observatories with crop system modelling for better understanding of climate change impact and adaptation strategies for Italian cropping systems” (www.icfar.it).The goals are :i) to parameterize crop...

Worldwide, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in controlling the growth of annual and perennial weeds. An increasing number of studies have highlighted the environmental risk resulting from the use of this molecule in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The objective of the study was to determine the transport of glyphosate and its degrad...

The aim of this study was to determine the vegeto-productive response of sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) under different watering regimes and to the compost fertilization

The strategies to cope with future climate ch ange scenarios need to take into account the water use at local level, especially in urban areas where water demand and water conflicts among different users may be relevant. In recent years, urban agriculture is emerging as new competitor among the users of water available in many metropolitan areas, d...

The IC-FAR national project (Linking long term observatories with crop system modelling for better understanding of climate change impact, and adaptation strategies for Italian cropping systems) initiated in 2013 with the primary aim of implementing data from 16 long term Italian agronomic experiments in a common, interoperable structure. The build...

The frequency of natural hazards has been increasing in the last decades in Europe and specifically in Mediterranean regions due to climate change. For example heavy precipitation events can lead to disasters through the interaction with exposed and vulnerable people and natural systems. It is therefore necessary a prevention planning to preserve h...

Glyphosate [-(phosphono-methyl)-glycine] is the main herbicide used in the Chianti vineyards. Considering the pollution risk of the water table and that the vineyard tile drain may deliver this pollutant into nearby streams, the objective of the present study was to estimate the leaching losses of glyphosate under natural rainfall conditions in a s...

Nitrogen (N) is one of the major limiting factors of crop production, and the crop uptake is highly variable within a single year, between years, sites, and crops. The uptake variability is influenced by numerous agronomic, environmental and genetic factors. Therefore, coefficients of nutrient content in crop production may vary between regions, re...