Abstract
Maize is one of the important food crops in the Czech Republic, its growth and productivity are influenced by climate change. This study investigated the influence of precipitation under recent climate change on maize yield both for grain and silage in the whole Czech Republic during 2002–2019. Total maize yield and yield rate increased in the Czech Republic from 1961 to 2010, but they became to decrease after 2010. This is in line with the tendency of decreased precipitation and an increase in temperature after 2010, and changes are especially significant during the maize growing period, which indicates the importance of temperature and precipitation. In detail, there is a low to moderate negative correlation (−0.39 to −0.51) between grain maize yield and the average temperature in August for almost all the regions. While there is a low negative correlation between silage maize yield with the average temperature in July and August from some regions. The precipitation in July exhibited moderate to high positive correlation (0.54–0.79) to grain maize yield rate for almost all the regions, and it had low to moderate positive correlation (0.35–0.70) to silage maize yield rate for all the regions. Water deficit exhibited a negative correlation with both maize yield rate and its influence mainly in July for silage but both in July and August for grain. Farmer’s profit from grain maize is influence by yield rate, temperature, precipitation, and water deficit. A positive correlation was found between profit and grain yield rate and precipitation from July and August, while a negative correlation was detected between profit and water deficit and the average temperature in July and August. In conclusion, our results pointed out the factors influencing maize yield rate under changing climate conditions in the Czech Republic, and it warrants further studies on how to maintain maize production in a changing climate.
Highlights
Maize is one of the important food crops in the Czech Republic, its growth and productivity are influenced by climate change
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proposed the ‘Save and Grow’ model of crop production intensification aims at increasing both yields and nutritional quality while reducing costs to farmers and the environment[1]
The effect of climate change will be evident in the field of agriculture especially when it comes to crop yields and the location where these crops can be grown
Summary
Maize is one of the important food crops in the Czech Republic, its growth and productivity are influenced by climate change. This study investigated the influence of precipitation under recent climate change on maize yield both for grain and silage in the whole Czech Republic during 2002–2019. In the Czech Republic, the interest in cultivating maize increased dramatically since 1990 (land for maize production increase from 44,941 ha in 1990, to 75,853 ha in 2019) with its total yield (t) has grown over fivefold and the unit yield (t/ha) increased about threefold This is driven by one of the Czech Ministry of Agriculture’s aims to ensure food self-sufficient by 2030 concerning climate change. The extreme weather events such as especially heat waves, droughts, and heavy precipitation are already shown to cause crop failure and influence crop yield variability in the Czech Republic as well as other European countries over the c enturies[10,11,12]
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