A $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture will feed a three-year project at Cal Poly Pomona that will help California farmers growing grapes, strawberries and citrus fruits prepare for climate change. This trinity of specialty crops bring billions of dollars each year to the Golden State.

Plant science student Kailan Kidder demonstrates how to use a chlorophyll meter to two interns working under co-investigator Priti Saxena.

"Given that climate change is happening so fast, climate conditions ask, 'How can farmers plan for it?'" said Geography Professor Gabriel Granco, lead investigator. "Are we using areas that we will maintain or remain suitable? Are we developing new areas in locations that would not be suitable in the future? One point for us is to define suitability - to have the appropriate or good climate, soil and good terrain for the crops to grow."

More than a third of the country's vegetables and two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in California. In 2020, the state's Department of Food and Agriculture valued production of grapes at $4.5 billion, strawberries at $2 billion, and citrus fruits at $3.6 billion.

The research team will draw from multiple disciplines - aerospace engineering, computer science, geography and plant science - to integrate machine learning, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and geographic information systems to develop 24 models measuring agricultural suitability. The best model will be translated as web maps available to farmers as early as 2025, improving their access to information for decision-making under current and future climate conditions.

Joining Granco are Subodh Bhandari, professor of aerospace engineering; John Korah, assistant professor of computer science; Priti Saxena, assistant professor of plant science; and up to 24 undergraduate and graduate students who will be hired over the course of the research period.

Students will be involved in data collection in the fields; UAV flight plans; geospatial data analysis; and agronomical measurements ranging from chlorophyll levels to fruit yields.

Foundational to the model is USDA national and state satellite data that will be supplemented by new data from three local agricultural sites: Cal Poly Pomona's 125-acre Spadra Farm, the farm's citrus orchard and organic tomato breeding field, and nearby Huntley Vineyard. Data collection that began this summer will conclude in 2024.

California's variety of specialty crops grow in microclimates that suggest a multitude of adaptation options, Granco said. While other research focus on climates and crops at the county level, Spadra could be representative of smaller regions "from San Gabriel Valley to the Santa Ana Mountains."

"We planned this research to work with us and bring what we study back into the classrooms," Granco said. "These problems will not be addressed by only one discipline, it's the combination of all these different fields working together to address the bigger problem - climate change and, in this case, applied to agricultural suitability."