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Impact of future climate change on wheat production in relation to plant-available water capacity in a semiaridenvironment

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Abstract

Conceptions encompassing climate change are irreversible rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, increased temperature, and changes in rainfall both in spatial- and temporal-scales worldwide. This will have a major impact on wheat production, particularly if crops are frequently exposed to a sequence, frequency, and intensity of specific weather events like high temperature during growth period. However, the process of wheat response to climate change is complex and compounded by interactions among atmospheric CO2 concentration, climate variables, soil, nutrition, and agronomic management. In this study, we use the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM)-wheat model, driven by statistically downscaled climate projections of 18 global circulation models (GCMs) under the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) A2 CO2 emission scenario to examine impact on future wheat yields across key wheat growing regions considering different soil types in New South Wales (NSW) of Australia. The response of wheat yield, yield components, and phenology vary across sites and soil types, but yield is closely related to plant available water capacity (PAWC). Results show a decreasing yield trend during the period of 2021–2040 compared to the baseline period of 1961–1990. Across different wheat-growing regions in NSW, grain yield difference in the future period (2021–2040) over the baseline (1961–1990) varies from +3.4 to −14.7 %, and in most sites, grain number is decreased, while grain size is increased in future climate. Reduction of wheat yield is mainly due to shorter growth duration, where average flowering and maturing time are advanced by an average of 11 and 12 days, respectively. In general, larger negative impacts of climate change are exhibited in those sites with higher PAWC. Current wheat cultivars with shorter growing season properties are viable in the future climate, but breading for early sowing wheat varieties with longer growing duration will be a desirable adaptation strategy for mitigating the impact of changing climate on wheat yield.

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Acknowledgments

The senior author thanks the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) for providing financial support to visit the EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation and also the financial support of the Natural Science Foundation Committee (41240010). We are grateful to Dr. Mark Conyers of NSW DPI for his proofreading of the manuscript. Acknowledgments are due to the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table 2) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the US Department of Energy's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the SRES A2 scenario used to fit the Eq. 2 were kindly provided by Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The concentrations are those illustrated by the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report for the multimodel mean midrange carbon cycle projection for the SRES scenarios (see Meehl et al. 2007, Fig. 10.26).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Agricultural Water Resources, Center for Agricultural Resources Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, CAS, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050020, China

    Yanmin Yang & Yonghui Yang

  2. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute, PMB, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2650, Australia

    Yanmin Yang, De Li Liu & Muhuddin Rajin Anwar

  3. EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2650, Australia

    Yanmin Yang, De Li Liu & Muhuddin Rajin Anwar

  4. NSW Office of Water, Queanbeyan NSW Office of Water, 11 Farrer Place, PO Box 189, Queanbeyan, NSW, 2620, Australia

    Heping Zuo

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Yang, Y., Liu, D.L., Anwar, M.R. et al. Impact of future climate change on wheat production in relation to plant-available water capacity in a semiaridenvironment. Theor Appl Climatol 115, 391–410 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-0895-z

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