On April 16, 2026 TETHYS participated in the study day “Kiwifruit in Calabria: Strategies and innovation to ensure quality and sustainability in the supply chain”, hosted at the Department of Agriculture of the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria.
The initiative, promoted by the Calabrian University, brought together university professors, researchers, technicians and operators of the supply chain with the aim of take stock of the present and future of kiwifruit in Calabria, a crop which in recent years has taken on a increasingly strategic role for the regional territory.
During the morning the following issues were addressed: central themes for the sector: production quality, economic sustainability, agronomic management, technical innovation and ability to respond to new environmental criticalities.
Tethys will be present at the event with a talk on satellite monitoring.
For TETHYS they intervened Massimo Ambrogi And Lorenza Panunzi, with a Report on monitoring kiwi crops using satellite imagery And using data to support more efficient decisions in the field.
L'interest recorded during the meeting was particularly significant. There participation was wide, with a significant presence of local producers, a concrete sign of a sector that is looking operational tools to face a phase of increasing complexity.
Water and irrigation: an increasingly central issue for kiwifruit
Among the signals that emerged most clearly during the day's work, one concerns the water themeIn many companies the problem does not yet manifest itself in an emergency form, but There is a growing awareness that water availability and irrigation efficiency will represent a decisive turning point in the near future.
Kiwi is a crop that is demanding in terms of water and physiological requirements. For this reason, watering a lot does not necessarily coincide with watering well. Instead, it becomes essential to know:
• The real need of the crop at different seasonal times;
• the soil response to irrigation contributions;
• any excesses or deficiencies distributed within the same plot;
• the differences between zones apparently homogeneous but agronomically different.
In this scenario, continuous monitoring tools, such as ours Watch, and water needs analysis, such as ours Aqua, can offer a concrete advantage.
Kiwi: Production Opportunities and New Vulnerabilities
The attention found in Calabria confirms a dynamics at this point also evident in other Italian areas: the kiwi It remains a crop of great economic value, but today requires a much more advanced level of management compared to the past.
In recent years the sector has had to deal with problems such as Kiwi die-off, The radical stresses, the climate anomalies and the increasing pressure on water resourcesDifferent phenomena, but often linked by a common element: the need for try to read in advance what happens in the soil-plant-water system.
It is precisely on this ground that research, university And technological innovation can create a new competitive balance for the supply chain.
The contribution of TETHYS
The participation in the event of the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria is part of the path that TETHYS has been carrying out for some time on kiwi, with activities dedicated to vegetative state monitoring, to the water balance, to thesoil analysis and to the decision support for agricultural companies.
The goal is to provide clear data, timely And usable, transforming field observation in one concrete management tool.
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