The Flowering of Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) in Italy: A Phenology Modeling Approach

Knowledge of the flowering dates black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) is crucial information both economic significance and scientific interest. Black in fact an excellent melliferous plant can provide on climate change impacts due to its large distribution throughout world as planted naturalized trees. This paper presents calibration validation a phenological model targeted at simulation whole process (from BBCH 51—inflorescence flower buds visible—to 69—end flowering). The work relies observations gathered context IPHEN, Italian PHEnological Network, with broad latitudinal observational sites 37.53° 46.28° N) long time span, from 2010 2021. Phenology modeling based Normal Heat Hours approach, which translates air temperature into thermal units specific response curve. As meteorological input data, high resolution (0.045°) gridded dataset was obtained by spatial interpolation GSOD (NOAA) weather stations.