Wheat response to a wide range of temperatures, as determined from the Hot Serial Cereal (HSC) Experiment

Abstract

Temperatures are warming on a global scale, a phenomenon that likely will affect future crop productivity. Crop growth models are useful tools to predict the likely effects of these global changes on agricultural productivity and to develop strategies to maximize the benefits and minimize the detriments of such changes. However, few such models have been tested at the higher temperatures expected in the future. Therefore, a “Hot Serial Cereal” experiment was conducted on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), the world’s foremost food and feed crop, in order to obtain a dataset appropriate for testing the high temperature performance of wheat growth models. The wheat (Cereal) was planted serially (Serial) about every six weeks for over two years at Maricopa, Arizona, USA, which experiences the whole range of temperatures at which plants grow on Earth. In addition, on six planting dates infrared heaters in a T-FACE (temperature free-air controlled enhancement) system (Hot) were deployed over one-third of the plots to warm the wheat by additional target 1.5°C during daytime and 3.0°C at night. Achieved average degrees of warming were 1.3 and 2.7°C for day and night. Overall, a dataset covering 27 differently treated wheat crops with three replicates each was obtained covering an air temperature range from -2 to 42°C. Herein, the management, soils, weather, physiology, phenology, growth, yield, quality, and other data are presented. Data access via doi 10.7910/DVN/AEFLHB.