Abstract: Given the energetic, demographic and the climatic challenges faced today, we designed a combined food and energy (CFE) production system integrating food, fodder and mixed belts of Salix, Alnus and Corylus sp. as bioenergy belts. The objective was to assess the shoot dry weight-stem diameter allometric relationship based on stem diameter at 10 (SD10) and 55 cm (SD55) from the shoot base in the mixed bioenergy belts. Allometric relations based on SD10 and SD55 explained 90-96% and 90-98% of the variation in shoot dry weights respectively with no differences between the destructive and the non-destructive methods. The individual stool yields varied widely among the species and within willow species with biomass yield range of 37.60-92.00 oven dry tons (ODT) ha (1) in 4-year growth cycle. The biomass yield of the bioenergy belt, predicted by allometric relations was 48.84 ODT ha 1 in 4-year growth cycle corresponding to 12.21 ODT ha (1) year (1). The relatively high biomass yield is attributed to the border effects and the ‘fertilizing effect’ of alder due to nitrogen fixation, benefitting other SWRC components. On termination of 4-year growth cycle, the bioenergy belts were harvested and the biomass yield recorded was 12.54 ODT ha (1) year (1), in close proximity to the biomass yield predicted by the allometric equations, lending confidence and robustness of the model for biomass yield determination in such integrated agro-ecosystem. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Process-based crop simulation models are increasingly used in regional climate change impact studies, but little is known about the implications of different calibration strategies on simulated yields. This study aims to assess the importance of region-specific calibration of five important field crops (winter wheat, winter barley, potato, sugar beet and maize) across 25 member countries of the European Union (EU25). We examine three calibration strategies and their implications on spatial and temporal yield variability in response to climate change: (i) calculation of phenology parameters only, (ii) consideration of both phenology calibration and a yield correction factor and (iii) calibration of phenology and selected growth processes. The analysis is conducted for 533 climate zones, considering 24 years of observed yield data (1983-2006). The best performing strategy is used to estimate the impacts of climate change, increasing CO2 concentration and technology development on yields for the five crops across EU25, using seven climate change scenarios for the period 2041-2064. Simulations and calibrations are performed with the crop model LINTUL2 combined with a calibration routine implemented in the modelling interface LINTUL-FAST. The results show that yield simulations improve if growth parameters are considered in the calibration for individual regions (strategy 3); e.g. RMSE values for simulated winter wheat yield are 2.36, 1.10 and 0.70 Mg ha(-1) for calibration strategies 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The calibration strategy did not only affect the model simulations under reference climate but also the extent of the simulated climate change impacts. Applying the calibrated model for impact assessment revealed that climatic change alone will reduce crop yields. Consideration of the effects of increasing CO2 concentration and technology development resulted in yield increases for all crops except maize (i.e. the negative effects of climate change were outbalanced by the positive effects of CO2 and technology change), with considerable differences between scenarios and regions. Our simulations also suggest some increase in yield variability due to climate change which, however, is less pronounced than the differences among scenarios which are particularly large when the effects of CO2 concentration and technology development are considered. Our results stress the need for region-specific calibration of crop models used for Europe-wide assessments. Limitations of the considered strategies are discussed. We recommend that future work should focus on obtaining more comprehensive, high quality data with a finer resolution allowing application of improved strategies for model calibration that better account for spatial differences and changes over time in the growth and development parameters used in crop models. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Global climate is changing and food production is very sensitive to weather and climate variations. Global assessments of climate change impacts on food production have been made since the early 1990s, initially with little attention to the uncertainties involved. Although there has been abundant analysis of uncertainties in future greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts on the climate system, uncertainties related to the way climate change projections are scaled down as appropriate for different analyses and in modelling crop responses to climate change, have been neglected. This review paper mainly addresses uncertainties in crop impact modelling and possibilities to reduce them. We specifically aim to (i) show ranges of projected climate change-induced impacts on crop yields, (ii) give recommendations on use of emission scenarios, climate models, regionalization and ensemble crop model simulations for different purposes and (iii) discuss improvements and a few known unknowns’ affecting crop impact projections.