REGSUNUT – Survival of hazelnut cultivation in Camp de Tarragona: Value of treated wastewater as a complement to conventional water resources.

Comunidad de regantes del Pantano de Riudecanyes, junto con Unió Nuts SCCL, y con la participación del Instituto de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentarias (IRTA), están trabajando en el proyecto del Grupo Operativo REGSUNUT.

The soil and climatic conditions of the Camp de Tarragona are very different from those of the natural ecosystem in which the hazelnut tree develops, but management adapted to its conditions has enabled the region to excel at world level, being the third most productive region in the world in the 80s and 90s.

However, the current drought situation suffered by the Camp de Tarragona in recent years not only threatens to significantly reduce hazelnut production and quality in the area, which are closely related to the water they receive during the season, but also to kill trees and force entire plantations to be replanted. The reduced availability of water for irrigation in the counties of Camp de Tarragona is a limiting factor for the profitability of the hazelnut sector, and it is necessary to explore other alternative sources of water such as treated wastewater from urban centres to avoid production and quality losses due to water stress and using a water source that until now has been considered a water source.

Thus, the general objective of the project is to validate the use of treated wastewater in hazelnut trees to study their physiological and agronomic response and to be able to recommend or not their use and to find out whether they are an opportunity to increase the competitiveness of the sector and its adaptation to climate change.

The project hopes to answer the question of whether the use of water from alternative sources such as treated waste water, with a high concentration of salts, represents a competitive advantage for the area by increasing the volume of water available for hazelnut irrigation, which would avoid undesirable water stress, or whether, on the other hand, the direct use of water is very sensitive to salinity, penalising the vegetative development, production and quality of the hazelnut.

Currently, there are no scientific studies that relate the use of treated waste water with the vegetative and reproductive response of hazelnut trees. Therefore, the results of this project will assist producers in the area on the viability of this type of water, presenting it in the area (or not) as a potential solution to mitigate the effects of drought.

To answer these questions, the project proposes to irrigate hazelnut trees with conventional water, water with a high concentration of salts and water mixtures. Thus, the innovation of the project also lies in assessing water with a high concentration of salts as an alternative, proposing mixtures of conventional and waste water that can guarantee water quality suitable for hazelnut tree irrigation, and being able to determine the threshold values of salts suitable for hazelnut tree management.

PAC Strategic Plan 2023-2027 action co-financed by: