Assessing crop genetic resources for adaptation using ensemble climate and crop yield forecasting

Abstract

Food production under climate change depends on the identification of crop genotypic properties required to maintain high yields. This endeavour is a core part of the work of the CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) project. The development of successful adaptation strategies is contingent upon a degree of accuracy in climate change projections and in the simulation of the response of crops to climate. We present scenarios of crop yield for India and north-east China using ensemble techniques for climate and crop models, thus quantifying uncertainty in a coherent and systematic manner. Observations of the response of crops to climate are used to constrain the ensembles. The resulting ensembles are used to assess: (1) the extent to which the range of existing genotypic properties can be used to adapt to climate change (groundnut in India), and (2) the impact of biophysical adaptation to the percentage of harvests failing under climate change (spring-wheat in north-east China).