Assessing Climate Change Effects on Fruit Growing Conditions in the Northwestern Himalayan Region of India

The Himalayan region of India is experiencing warmer winters and hotter summers, which are causing reduced yields and putting the production of traditional fruit species in danger. In order to gain an understanding of the thermal growing conditions, it is essential to have chill and heat accumulation monitored. In the current investigation, the Dynamic model is utilized to compute the chill accumulation, while the Growing Degree Days (GDD) method is utilized to compute the heat accumulation. In order to calculate these indices, gridded hourly temperature data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ERA)5 dataset was utilized. The time period covered by this dataset is from 1940 to 2023. The study's findings revealed the best elevation ranges for several of the region's most significant fruits, such as citrus fruits, almond trees, and fresh fruits. Furthermore, places with elevations ranging from 1000 to 2000 are good for growing fresh fruits. This is due to the fact that 70 percent of the Chilling Portion (CP) values are high enough to be greater than 60.