Brazil gains pineapple climate zoning for the entire country

Pineapple cultivation in Brazil has just received an important boost: the first Agricultural Zoning of Climate Risk (Zarc) for the crop with national coverage. The new tool, published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa) on Tuesday (13), guides producers from all municipalities in the country on the best planting conditions, based on scientific and historical data. Developed by Embrapa, the new Zarc updates and expands the previous version, from 2012, and brings improvements that promise to increase productivity and reduce risks, especially in vulnerable regions such as the Semiarid region. The new version brings three important updates. One of them is the classification into three risk levels (20%, 30% and 40%) associated with the fruit development phases, from flowering, through fruiting, to harvest, with 40% being the maximum acceptable risk for cultivation. With this, planting calendars are generated that indicate when and where the crop can be most productive ...