Modeling the potential impact of climate change on maize-maize cropping system in semi-arid environment and designing of adaptation options

Climate change is showing detrimental effect on crop productivity and food security. Adaptive strategies should be implemented to offset the negative impacts of climate change on the maize crop. There is concern that food insecurity will increase in Pakistan due to climate change. Hence, present study was conducted to quantify the response of maize yield to projected climate change and suggest adaptation options i.e., planting date, fertilizer use, fertigation, plant density and hybrid choice to counterbalance the impact of climate change using the CSM_CERES_Maize model. Field data obtained during spring and autumn seasons of 2016 was used to calibrate the model while evaluation was done using experimental data of 2016 and 2017. Afterwards, sensitivity analysis for carbon dioxide, temperature, water, and nitrogen (CTWN) variation was performed, and it was then applied to determine the impact of climate change on spring and autumn maize for mid-century. The results revealed that model performance was better for the spring season than for the autumn season. The model was sensitive to CTWN during the spring and autumn season of maize. Results showed that without adaptation, grain yield will be reduced in the spring (17 to 29%) and autumn (19 to 33%) seasons maize while adoption of adaptation strategies (e.g., Fertigation, sowing date adjustment (earlier sowing of spring maize by 15 days and delayed sowing of autumn maize by 20 days), higher thermal time requiring cultivars, increasing 10% plant population and 25 kg N ha-1 during mid-century) could increase grain yield during both seasons. Therefore, farmers should adopt these adaptation strategies so that negative impact of climate on maize yield could be reduced.

Dergi

AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY

Yıl

2023

Cilt

341

ISSN

0168-1923

eISSN

1873-2240

DOI

10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109674

WoS UID

WOS:001060250000001