XVI International Botanical Congess
The method deals with early harvest forecasts based on the analysis of the pollen content of the atmosphere. First tested locally on vinyards such as the Champagne, it has been extended on an European scale to the vine and olive crops (the JRC at Ispra, Italy, Mars project). Today, it is beeing applied in Tunisia for olive crops forecasts as well as for rice and oilseed rape productions in France. The method allow one, in all but some cases, to forecast the crops as early as the end of the flowering time and at low cost at a local, regional and national scale. One can set rigorously the flowering time and estimate the crop quality - the 'millésime', as for the wine.