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Rötter, R. P., Appiah, M., Fichtler, E., Kersebaum, K. C., Trnka, M., & Hoffmann, M. P. (2018). Linking modelling and experimentation to better capture crop impacts of agroclimatic extremes-A review. Field Crops Research, 221, 142–156.
Abstract: Climate change implies higher frequency and magnitude of agroclimatic extremes threatening plant production and the provision of other ecosystem services. This review is motivated by a mismatch between advances made regarding deeper understanding of abiotic stress physiology and its incorporation into ecophysiological models in order to more accurately quantifying the impacts of extreme events at crop system or higher aggregation levels. Adverse agroclimatic extremes considered most detrimental to crop production include drought, heat, heavy rains/hail and storm, flooding and frost, and, in particular, combinations of them. Our core question is: How have and could empirical data be exploited to improve the capability of widely used crop simulation models in assessing crop impacts of key agroclimatic extremes for the globally most important grain crops? To date there is no comprehensive review synthesizing available knowledge for a broad range of extremes, grain crops and crop models as a basis for identifying research gaps and prospects. To address these issues, we selected eight major grain crops and performed three systematic reviews using SCOPUS for period 1995-2016. Furthermore, we amended/complemented the reviews manually and performed an in-depth analysis using a sub-sample of papers. Results show that by far the majority of empirical studies (1631 out of 1772) concentrate on the three agroclimatic extremes drought, heat and heavy rain and on the three major staples wheat, maize and rice (1259 out of 1772); the concentration on just a few has increased over time. With respect to modelling studies two model families, i.e. CERES-DSSAT and APSIM, are dearly dominating for wheat and maize; for rice, ORYZA2000 and CERES-Rice predominate and are equally strong. For crops other than maize and wheat the number of studies is small. Empirical and modelling papers don’t differ much in the proportions the various extreme events are dealt with drought and heat stress together account for approx. 80% of the studies. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of papers, especially after 2010. As a way forward, we suggest to have very targeted and well-designed experiments on the specific crop impacts of a given extreme as well as of combinations of them. This in particular refers to extremes addressed with insufficient specificity (e.g. drought) or being under-researched in relation to their economic importance (heavy rains/storm and flooding). Furthermore, we strongly recommend extending research to crops other than wheat, maize and rice.
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Hoffmann, M. P., Haakana, M., Asseng, S., Höhn, J. G., Palosuo, T., Ruiz-Ramos, M., et al. (2017). How does inter-annual variability of attainable yield affect the magnitude of yield gaps for wheat and maize? An analysis at ten sites. Agric. Syst., 159, 199–208.
Abstract: Highlights • The larger simulated attainable yield for a specific crop season, the larger the yield gap. • Average size of the yield gap is not affected by the inter-annual variability of attainable yield. • Technology levels (resource input and accessibility) determine average yield gap. • To reduce yield gaps in rainfed environments, farmers need to improve season-specific crop management. Abstract Provision of food security in the face of increasing global food demand requires narrowing of the gap between actual farmer’s yield and maximum attainable yield. So far, assessments of yield gaps have focused on average yield over 5–10 years, but yield gaps can vary substantially between crop seasons. In this study we hypothesized that climate-induced inter-annual yield variability and associated risk is a major barrier for farmers to invest, i.e. increase inputs to narrow the yield gap. We evaluated the importance of inter-annual attainable yield variability for the magnitude of the yield gap by utilizing data for wheat and maize at ten sites representing some major food production systems and a large range of climate and soil conditions across the world. Yield gaps were derived from the difference of simulated attainable yields and regional recorded farmer yields for 1981 to 2010. The size of the yield gap did not correlate with the amplitude of attainable yield variability at a site, but was rather associated with the level of available resources such as labor, fertilizer and plant protection inputs. For the sites in Africa, recorded yield reached only 20% of the attainable yield, while for European, Asian and North American sites it was 56–84%. Most sites showed that the higher the attainable yield of a specific season the larger was the yield gap. This significant relationship indicated that farmers were not able to take advantage of favorable seasonal weather conditions. To reduce yield gaps in the different environments, reliable seasonal weather forecasts would be required to allow farmers to manage each seasonal potential, i.e. overcoming season-specific yield limitations.
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Wang, E., Martre, P., Zhao, Z., Ewert, F., Maiorano, A., Rötter, R. P., et al. (2017). The uncertainty of crop yield projections is reduced by improved temperature response functions. Nature Plants, 3, 17102.
Abstract: Increasing the accuracy of crop productivity estimates is a key element in planning adaptation strategies to ensure global food security under climate change. Process-based crop models are effective means to project climate impact on crop yield, but have large uncertainty in yield simulations. Here, we show that variations in the mathematical functions currently used to simulate temperature responses of physiological processes in 29 wheat models account for >50% of uncertainty in simulated grain yields for mean growing season temperatures from 14 °C to 33 °C. We derived a set of new temperature response functions that when substituted in four wheat models reduced the error in grain yield simulations across seven global sites with different temperature regimes by 19% to 50% (42% average). We anticipate the improved temperature responses to be a key step to improve modelling of crops under rising temperature and climate change, leading to higher skill of crop yield projections. Erratum: doi: 10.1038/nplants.2017.125
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Zhao, G., Hoffmann, H., Van Bussel, L., Enders, A., Specka, X., Sosa, C., et al. (2014). Weather data aggregation’s effects on simulation of cropping systems: a model, production system and crop comparison. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: Interactions of climate, soil and management practices in cropping systems can be simulated at different scales to provide information for decision making. Low resolution simulation need less effort, but important details could be lost through data aggregation effects (DAEs). This paper aims to provide a general method to assess the DAEs on weather data and the simulation of cropping systems, and further investigate how the DAEs vary with changing crop models, crops, variables and production systems. A 30-year continuous cropping system was simulated for winter wheat and silage maize and potential, water-limited and water-nitrogen-limited production situations. Climate data of 1 km resolution and aggregations to resolutions of 10 to 100 km was used as input for the simulations. The data aggregation narrowed the variation of weather data and DAEs increased with increasingly coarser spatial resolution, causing the loss of hot spots in simulated results. Spatial patterns were similar across different resolutions. Consistent with DAEs on weather data, the DAEs on simulated yield (0 to 1.2 t ha-1 for winter wheat and 0 to 1.7 t ha-1 for silage maize), evapotranspiration (3 to 45 mm yr-1 for winter wheat and 4 to 40 mm yr-1 for silage maize), and water use efficiency (0.02 to 0.25 kg m-3 for winter wheat and 0.04 to 0.4 kg m-3 for silage maize), increased with coarser spatial resolution. Thus, if spatial information is needed for local management decisions, higher resolution is needed to adequately capture the spatial heterogeneity or hot spots in the region.
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Lehtonen, H. S., Kässi, P., Korhonen, P., Niskanen, O., Rötter, R., Palosuo, T., et al. (2014). Specific problems and solutions in climate change adaptation in North Savo region. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: Crop production for feed dominates land use in North Savo in eastern Finland. The value of dairy and beef production is appr. 70 % of the total value of agricultural production of the region. In climate change adaptation research we are especially interested in dairy and meat sectors, which are directly dependent on the development of productivity of crop production. Climate change implies changes in cereals and forage crop yields and nutritive quality. There are most likely increasing problems and risks related to overwintering and growing periods. Grass silage is mainly self-produced on farms and most often there is no market for silage. Silage production and use are vulnerable to changes in local climate, because lost yield cannot be easily replaced from market. Risks and costs due to increasing inter-annual yield volatility can be reduced by good management practices, such as crop rotation, plant protection, soil improvements and better crop protection against plant diseases.However the profitability of such measures is dependent on market and policy conditions. Nevertheless new cultivars and species, as well as various options for production and risk management, are most likely needed in future climate. Some adaptations may have multiple benefits which however may realize only in medium or long run. It is important to safeguard the most important and obviously needed adaptations, and identify market and socio-economic conditions which inhibit farmers from necessary adaptations and lead to reduced productivity and increased production costs.
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