Kahiluoto, H., Kaseva, J., Balek, J., Olesen, J. E., Ruiz-Ramos, M., Gobin, A., et al. (2019). Decline in climate resilience of European wheat. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 116(1), 123–128.
Abstract: Food security relies on the resilience of staple food crops to climatic variability and extremes, but the climate resilience of European wheat is unknown. A diversity of responses to disturbance is considered a key determinant of resilience. The capacity of a sole crop genotype to perform well under climatic variability is limited; therefore, a set of cultivars with diverse responses to weather conditions critical to crop yield is required. Here, we show a decline in the response diversity of wheat in farmers’ fields in most European countries after 2002-2009 based on 101,000 cultivar yield observations. Similar responses to weather were identified in cultivar trials among central European countries and southern European countries. A response diversity hotspot appeared in the trials in Slovakia, while response diversity “deserts” were identified in Czechia and Germany and for durum wheat in southern Europe. Positive responses to abundant precipitation were lacking. This assessment suggests that current breeding programs and cultivar selection practices do not sufficiently prepare for climatic uncertainty and variability. Consequently, the demand for climate resilience of staple food crops such as wheat must be better articulated. Assessments and communication of response diversity enable collective learning across supply chains. Increased awareness could foster governance of resilience through research and breeding programs, incentives, and regulation.
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Trnka, M., Feng, S., Semenov, M. A., Olesen, J. E., Kersebaum, K. C., Roetter, R. P., et al. (2019). Mitigation efforts will not fully alleviate the increase in water scarcity occurrence probability in wheat-producing areas. Sci. Adv., 5(9), eaau2406.
Abstract: Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe water scarcity (SWS) events, which negatively affect rain-fed crops such as wheat, a key source of calories and protein for humans. Here, we develop a method to simultaneously quantify SWS over the world’s entire wheat-growing area and calculate the probabilities of multiple/sequential SWS events for baseline and future climates. Our projections show that, without climate change mitigation (representative concentration pathway 8.5), up to 60% of the current wheat-growing area will face simultaneous SWS events by the end of this century, compared to 15% today. Climate change stabilization in line with the Paris Agreement would substantially reduce the negative effects, but they would still double between 2041 and 2070 compared to current conditions. Future assessments of production shocks in food security should explicitly include the risk of severe, prolonged, and near- simultaneous droughts across key world wheat-producing areas.
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Pohanková, E., Hlavinka, P., Kersebaum, K. C., Dubrovský, M., Fischer, M., Balek, J., et al. (2015). Pilot study: Field crop rotations modeling under present and future conditions in the Czech Republic using HERMES model (Vol. 5).
Abstract: The aim of this study is to compare the water and organic material balance, yields and other aspects estimated within crop rotations by the Hermes crop model for present and future climatic conditions in the Czech Republic. Moreover, this is a pilot study for the complex and continuous crop rotations modeling (using both single crop models and ensembles) in connection with transient climate change scenarios. For this purpose, three locations representing important agricultural regions of the Czech Republic (with different climatic conditions) were selected. The crop rotation (including spring barley, silage maize, winter wheat, winter rape, and winter wheat in the listed order) was simulated from 1981-2080. The period 1981-2010 was covered by measured meteorological data, and the period 2011-2080 was represented by a transient synthetic weather series from the weather generator M&Rfi. The generated data was based on five circulation models representing an ensemble of 18 CMIP3 global circulation models to preserve to a large degree the uncertainty of the original ensemble. Two types of crop management were compared, and the influences of soil quality, increasing atmospheric CO2 and magnitude of adaptation measure (in the form of sowing date changes) were also considered. According to the results, if a “dry” scenario (such as GFCM21) would occur, then all the C3 crops produced in drier regions would be devastated in a significant number of seasons; for example, by the 2070s, up to 19.5%, 21.5% and 47.0% of seasons with winter rape, spring barley and winter wheat, respectively, would have a yield level below 50% of the present yield. Negative impacts are likely even on premium-quality soils regardless of the use of a flexible sowing date and accounting for increasing CO2 concentrations. Moreover, in some cases, the use of catch crops can have negative impacts, exacerbating the soil water deficit for the subsequent crops. This study (submitted to Climate Research journal) will be used as a pilot for subsequent activities. In this area, following calculations (the same set of stations and updated climate scenarios) using growth models ensemble (currently includes 12 modeling approaches) started to estimate uncertainty aspects. Consequently, the analysis within wider range of conditions (across continents) and farming methods will be conducted. No Label
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Mäkinen, H., Kaseva, J., Trnka, M., Balek, J., Kersebaum, K. C., Nendel, C., et al. (2018). Sensitivity of European wheat to extreme weather. Field Crops Research, 222, 209–217.
Abstract: The frequency and intensity of extreme weather is increasing concomitant with changes in the global climate change. Although wheat is the most important food crop in Europe, there is currently no comprehensive empirical information available regarding the sensitivity of European wheat to extreme weather. In this study, we assessed the sensitivity of European wheat yields to extreme weather related to phenology (sowing, heading) in cultivar trials across Europe (latitudes 37.21 degrees to 61.34 degrees and longitudes- 6.02 degrees to 26.24 degrees) during the period 1991-2014. All the observed agro-climatic extremes (>= 31 degrees C, >= 35 degrees C, or drought around heading; >= 35 degrees C from heading to maturity; excessive rainfall; heavy rainfall and low global radiation) led to marked yield penalties in a selected set of European cultivars, whereas few cultivars were found to with no yield penalty in such conditions. There were no European wheat cultivars that responded positively (+ 10%) to drought after sowing, or frost during winter (- 15 degrees C and – 20 degrees C). Positive responses to extremes were often shown by cultivars associated with specific regions, such as good performance under high temperatures by southern-origin cultivars. Consequently, a major future breeding challenge will be to evaluate the potential of combining such cultivar properties with other properties required under different growing conditions with, for example, long day conditions at higher latitudes, when the intensity and frequency of extremes rapidly increase.
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Hlavinka, P., Kersebaum, K. C., Dubrovský, M., Pohanková, E., Balek, J., Žalud, Z., et al. (2014). Water balance and yield estimates for field crop rotations present versus future conditions based on transient scenarios..
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