Impact of soil type extrapolation on timothy grass yield under baseline and future climate conditions in southeastern Norway

Abstract

CR Climate Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials CR 65:71-86 (2015) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01303 Contribution to the CR Special: 'Modelling climate change impacts for food security' Impact of soil type extrapolation on timothy grass yield under baseline and future climate conditions in southeastern Norway Tomas Persson1,*, Sigrun Kværnø2, Mats Höglind1 1Agriculture Division, Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, 4353 Klepp Stasjon, Norway 2Environment Division, Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, Fredrik A. Dahls vei 20, 1430 Ås, Norway *Corresponding author: tomas.persson@bioforsk.no ABSTRACT: Interactions between soil properties and climate affect forage grass productivity. Dynamic models, simulating crop performance as a function of environmental conditions, are valid for a specific location with given soil and weather conditions. Extrapolations of local soil properties to larger regions can help assess the requirement for soil input in regional yield estimations. Using the LINGRA model, we simulated the regional yield level and variability of timothy, a forage grass, in Akershus and Østfold counties, Norway. Soils were grouped according to physical similarities according to 4 sets of criteria. This resulted in 66, 15, 5 and 1 groups of soils. The properties of the soil with the largest area was extrapolated to the other soils within each group and input to the simulations. All analyses were conducted for 100 yr of generated weather representing the period 1961-1990, and climate projections for the period 2046-2065, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change greenhouse gas emission scenario A1B, and 4 global climate models. The simulated regional seasonal timothy yields were 5-13% lower on average and had higher inter-annual variability for the least detailed soil extrapolation than for the other soil extrapolations, across climates. There were up to 20% spatial intra-regional differences in simulated yield between soil extrapolations. The results indicate that, for conditions similar to these studied here, a few representative profiles are sufficient for simulations of average regional seasonal timothy yield. More spatially detailed yield analyses would benefit from more detailed soil input. KEY WORDS: Climate change scenarios · Crop modelling · Forage grass · LINGRA · Soil properties · Spatial variability · Phleum pretense · Poaceae Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Persson T, Kværnø S, Höglind M (2015) Impact of soil type extrapolation on timothy grass yield under baseline and future climate conditions in southeastern Norway. Clim Res 65:71-86. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01303 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in CR Vol. 65. Online publication date: September 28, 2015 Print ISSN: 0936-577X; Online ISSN: 1616-1572 Copyright © 2015 Inter-Research.