Impacts of climate change on winter wheat growth in Panzhuang Irrigation District, Shandong Province

Global climate change has significant impacts on agricultural production. Future climate change will bring important influences to the food security. The CERES-Wheat model was used to simulate the winter wheat growing process and production in Panzhuang Irrigation District (PID) during 2011-2040 under B2 climate scenario based on the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) assumptions with the result of RCMs (Regional Climate Models) projections by PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies) system introduced to China from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. The CERES-Wheat model was calibrated and validated with independent field-measured growth data in 2002-2003 and 2007-2008 growing season under current climatic conditions at Yucheng Comprehensive Experimental Station (YCES), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The results show that a significant impact of climate change on crop growth and yield was noted in the PID study area. Average temperature at Yucheng Station rose by 0.86 degrees C for 1961-2008 in general. Under the B2 climate scenario, average temperature rose by 0.55 degrees C for 2011-2040 compared with the baseline period (1998-2008), which drastically shortened the growth period of winter-wheat. However, as the temperature keep increasing after 2030, the top-weight and yield of the winter wheat will turn to decrease. The simulated evapotranspiration shows an increasing trend, although it is not very significant, during 2011-2040. Water use efficiency will increase during 2011-2031, but decrease during 2031-2040. The results indicate that climate change enhances agricultural production in the short-term, whereas continuous increase in temperature limits crop production in the long-term