Impact of Heading Shift of Barley Cultivars on the Weather Patterns around Heading and Yield in Alaska

Mingyuan Cheng,Robert M Van Veldhuizen,Mingchu Zhang,Charles W Knight

doi:10.3390/atmos13020310

Mingyuan Cheng, Robert M Van Veldhuizen + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13020310

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Abstract

Barley heading date has advanced in Fairbanks (64.83° N, 147.77° W), Alaska, USA. However, it is unclear if this advance coincidently causes weather pattern changes around heading and leads to yield loss. Using the Variety Trial and weather data in Fairbanks and Delta Junction (64.05° N, 145.60° W) from 1991 to 2018, two barley cultivars were selected to analyze the yield and weather trends, the yield variation explained by weather, and the effect of extreme weather on yield. The results showed that the heading date of ‘Otal’ significantly advanced and yield significantly declined in Fairbanks while there were no heading and yield changes of ‘Otal’ in Delta Junction and of ‘Thual’ in both Fairbanks and Delta Junction. The weather pattern changed around heading due to advanced heading of ‘Otal’ in Fairbanks. The climate factors at 7–10 days around heading explained over 50% of ‘Otal’ yield variation in Fairbanks. The results suggest that ‘Otal’ can still be good to plant in Delta Junction but not in Fairbanks. To cope with the climate change in Alaska, the farmers should increase the diversity of barley cultivars, select non-photoperiod sensitive cultivars and cultivars with longer duration from planting to heading, and sow late to avoid the impact on heading and yield.

Highlights

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), one of important small grain crops, is cultivated across the world
In Kazakhstan, climate change is responsible for 4.8% of barley yield loss from 1980 to 2015 [4]
Based on the coefficients of models, the results showed that Tmin and precipitation or interaction between TminBH and precipitation before heading (PBH) were important climatic factors to impact the yield of ‘Otal’ in Fairbanks while in Delta Junction only PBH was important for the yield (Table 4)

Summary

Introduction

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), one of important small grain crops, is cultivated across the world. In recent years, the yield has stagnated in several important production regions such as southern and other parts of Europe partly because of climate change [1,3]. In Kazakhstan, climate change is responsible for 4.8% of barley yield loss from 1980 to 2015 [4]. The climate changes, especially the heat stress and drought at sensitive stages of plant development, are responsible for the barley yield loss [5]. The number of kernels and kernel yield per plant of waxy barley was significantly reduced from high temperature (30 ◦ C) at flowering [9]. At post-anthesis stages, high night temperature reduced thousand grain weight by 3% and 4% yield loss per ◦ C increase [10]. Most studies above were conducted under control environment and there are only a few reports on the sensitivity of barley varieties to weather changes based on historical crop and weather data [11]

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