The adaptive potential of wheat phenology to climate change

• Applicant: Ehsan Eyshi Rezaei, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Plant Cultivation, Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Technology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 520102751

Wheat growth and yield have been adversely affected by a change in the frequency and intensity of droughts and heatwaves caused by climate change. A combination of heat and drought stress can negatively affect crop phenology in addition to direct impacts from higher mean temperatures. However, neither old nor modern wheat cultivars are not studied for the presence of or potential of phenological plasticity (PP), avoiding the overlap between sensitive phases and extreme events. Mainly, little information is available whether (a) as an escape mechanism, PP is present in old winter wheat cultivars grown in Germany under drought and heat stress or it is a new trait, (b) the crop models can capture the long-term spatiotemporal variability of wheat yield by implementing PP mechanism as a new modeling module (c) change in the cultivar and sowing dates could be integral components of climate change adaptation for wheat production in Germany. Those gaps will resolve by conducting a series of experiments in the field and growth chamber (heat and drought stress), long-term data processing, model development, and crop modeling experiments. Winter wheat cultivars (old and modern) will be subjected to field and chamber experiments to disentangle the mechanisms involved in their phenological response to combined heat and drought stress. The new crop modeling routine will be developed based on the outcomes to take heat/drought stress into account. Validating the crop model will be done using field experiments. At the German-wide simulation experiment, we will use the new modeling routine to capture the variability of phenology and yield of winter wheat comparing with the long-term phenology observations and yield statistics. Finally, the suitability of long-term change in cultivars and sowing date as an adaptation strategy to climate change will be tested using eight model reconstructions, including the combinations among historical/recent climate × old/modern cultivars × historical/modern sowing date of winter wheat.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Claas Nendel, Ph.D.