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This study aims to assess the risks and opportunities posed by climate change to potato growers in South Africa and to evaluate adaptation measures in the form of changes in planting time growers could adopt to optimise land and water use efficiencies in potato, using a climate model of past, present-day and future climate over southern Africa and the LINTUL crop growth model. This was done for distinct agro-ecosystems in South Africa: the southern Mediterranean area where potato still is grown year round with a doubling of the number of hot days between 1960 and 2050, the Eastern Free State with summer crops only and Limpopo with currently autumn, winter and spring crops where the number of hot days increases sevenfold and in future the crop will mainly be grown in winter. A benefit here will be a drastic reduction of frost days from 0.9 days per winter to 0. Potato crops in the agro-ecosystems will …