Spring frost in Northern Italy orchards: a project on previsions, monitoring and control

Spring frosts are recurrent events that have been causing in the last years very important productive and economic damages to the fruit growing industry in Northern Italy. Here are described the first results of a project, started in the winter 1999, aiming to forecast, to monitor and to control the spring frosts in the orchards.The main steps are the improvement of the frost previsions, the description of the regional landscape in relation to the climatic hazard, the study and the improvement of the most efficient means of active protection, the economic and social evaluation and the service to the fruit growers.