Abstract
Climate is a main factor that influences the winter wheat production. Changing the crop cultivars and adjusting the sowing dates are used as strategies to adapt to climate change. First, we evaluated the simulation ability of the Decision Support System for Agro-technology Transfer (DSSAT) CERES wheat model based on the experimental data with varied sowing dates and cultivars. Second, we designed optimal cultivars in three different environmental conditions with the highest grain yield in the North China Plain (NCP) based on model sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, we optimized the sowing dates for three sites with the above-derived cultivar parameters. The results showed that the DSSAT–CERES wheat model was suitable for winter wheat simulation after calibration and validation with a Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) between 0.9% and 9.5% for phenology, 6.8% and 17.8% for above ground biomass, and 4.6% and 9.7% for grain yield. The optimal cultivars significantly prolonged the wheat growth duration by 14.1, 27.5, and 24.4 days at the Shangzhuang (SZ), Xingtai (XT), and Zhumadian (ZMD) sites compared with current cultivars, respectively. The vegetative growth duration (from sowing to anthesis) was prolonged 18.4 and 12.2 days at the XT and ZMD sites significantly, while shortened 0.81 days at the SZ site. The grain yield could be potentially improved by 29.5%, 86.8%, and 34.6% at the SZ, XT, and ZMD sites using the optimal cultivars, respectively. Similarly, the improvement of aboveground biomass at three sites was 5.5%, 47.1%, and 12.7%, respectively. Based on the guaranteed rate and analysis of variance, we recommended a later sowing date (from 15 September to 20 October) at the SZ and ZMD sites, and 15 September to 15 October at the XT site. In addition, the methodology of this study could be expanded to other regions and possibly to other crops.
Highlights
Winter wheat is one of the most vital crops around the globe [1]
Three or four sowing dates were conducted with a 10-day interval, and three different cultivars were sowed on each sowing date: weak-winter wheat YZ4110 (YZ), which is usually sowed in the southern North China Plain (NCP); semi-winter wheat HD 6172 (HD), which is typically sowed in the central NCP; winter wheat ND 211(ND), a typical cultivar sowed in the northern NCP—the three cultivars with increased freezing resistance from weak-winter wheat to winter wheat [28]
The Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) were lower than 10% for the three cultivars, and the index ooff aaggrreeeemmeenntt ((DD)) wwaass hhiigghheerr tthhaann 00..88, wwhhiicchh iinnddiiccaatteedd tthhaatt tthhee mmooddeell ccoouulldd rreepprroodduuccee tthhee wwhheeaatt ddeevveellooppmmeennt wweellll
Summary
Winter wheat is one of the most vital crops around the globe [1]. One of the most important challenges facing the world under climate change is to produce enough foodstuff for a continuously increasing population. In the past few decades, existing studies have identified that climate change has been affecting crop growth and yield in many countries [5,6,7]. There is existing evidence showing that climate change (temperature increment) since the 1980s has reduced crop yields, because the crop growth duration was shortened and heat/water stress-aggravated [8,9]. The negative impacts of climate change on the agricultural industry will continue to challenge food safety in the future [10,11]. The maintenance of winter wheat security is crucial and urgent for both farmers and government
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