Simulation of Climate Change Impacts on Phenology and Production of Winter Wheat in Northwestern China Using CERES-Wheat Model

Zhen Zheng,Xinkun Wang,Zikai Wang,Huanjie Cai

doi:10.3390/atmos11070681

Abstract

Wheat plays a very important role in China’s agriculture. The wheat grain yields are affected by the growing period that is determined by temperature, precipitation, and field management, such as planting date and cultivar species. Here, we used the CSM-CERES-Wheat model along with different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and two global circulation models (GCMs) to simulate different impacts on the winter wheat that caused by changing climate for 2025 and 2050 projections for Guanzhong Plain in Northwest China. Our results showed that it is obvious that there is a warming trend in Guanzhong Plain; the mean temperature for the different scenarios increased up to 3.8 °C. Furthermore, the precipitation varied in the year; in general, the rainfall in February and August was increased, while it decreased in April, October and November. However, the solar radiation was found to be greatly reduced in the Guanzhong Plain. Compared to the reference year, the results showed that the number of days to maturity was shortened 3–24 days, and the main reason was the increased temperature during the winter wheat growing period. Moreover, five planting dates (from October 7 to 27 with five days per step) were applied to simulate the final yield and to select an appropriate planting date for the study area. The yield changed smallest based on Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL)-CM3 (−6.5, −5.3, −4.2 based on RCP 4.5, RCP 6.0, and RCP 8.5) for 2025 when planting on October 27. Farmers might have to plant the crop before 27 October.

Highlights

The growing wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in China makes up 21.9% of the whole crop area sown in 2011, leading to China producing the highest wheat grain yield in the world [1,2].wheat production is facing future changes in rainfall patterns, temperature conditions, and other factors that restrict farmers’ ability to plant this crop
The mean daily radiation for 1961–1990 in the study area was 15.2 MJ m−2 ; the results showed that the average solar radiation (SRAD) decreased for all three
The predicted SRAD change as 2025 was the same for the given months compared to 2050 projection, with a slight decreasing trend in January, February, and March and a slight increasing trend in the rest of the months

Summary

Introduction

The growing wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in China makes up 21.9% of the whole crop area sown in 2011, leading to China producing the highest wheat grain yield in the world [1,2]. Wheat production is facing future changes in rainfall patterns, temperature conditions, and other factors that restrict farmers’ ability to plant this crop. The whole world, including China, is paying attention to the risk of wheat production [3,4,5]. Previous studies have shown that wheat productivity will be vulnerable to climate change in southeastern Asia and southern China [6,7,8]. In 30 or 50 years, the world will change in an unimaginable way and it is difficult to imagine how the future climate will be changed and how the crops respond to those climate changes, which results

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion