Creative Commons

In recent years, the cultivation of nut trees in Greece has been increasing. Almonds, walnuts, peanuts, hazelnuts and chestnuts, have the main say in new plantings. Many growers are moving away from the more common vegetable crops and turning to nut trees, given the growing demand, the satisfactory selling price and the minimal cultivation costs. Considering all these facts, there has been an outbreak of nut trees cultivation in Greece during the last 6-7 years. Since many cultivated areas with these perennial crops suffer from fruitlessness and bad quality crops, the land evaluation is an important issue for the crop establishment. Land suitability assessment is essential in crop management because it enables decision makers to make appropriate agricultural plans by identifying and evaluating the main factors for agricultural production. In this study, a Geographical Information System (GIS) based multi-criteria decision support tool is going to be developed to assist land use planners to identify areas with physical constraints for nut trees productivity. Georeferenced soil survey data will be integrated in a GIS environment and the suitability assessment of nut tree cultivation is going to be performed based on crop requirements to the quality and characteristics of soil. Therefore, specific soil characteristics such as pH, EC, CEC etc. will be examined by a spatial decision support tool designed according to the F.A.O classification; FAO suitability classes are: S1 (highly suitable), S2 (moderately suitable), S3 (marginally suitable), N1 (currently not suitable) and N2 (permanently not suitable). Suitability maps will be developed to illustrate these suitability degrees and display the spatial representation of soils suitable for nut tree cultivation. More specifically, the selected soil and site criteria (physical, chemical, and socioeconomic properties) for nut trees cultivation will produce several different thematic maps using logical operations in a spatial environment. The final suitability maps for nut tree cultivations will be generated by overlaying the thematic maps.