Climate change impact on wheat yield and climate long-term trends in Kansas-USA

Abstract

It is important to study the crop response to future climate scenarios due to climate changes affecting the Earth. Wheat is a major crop in Kansas, USA, given its role in food security. It is expected that climate change would affect crop yield in the future, and this project aims to analyze long-term climate data series in the State of Kansas to understand the impact that climate change has already caused on the weather variables, based on non-parametric statistics equations of Mann-Kendall and Pettitt to study trends and breaks in the data, respectively. In addition, we also intend to analyze the crop yield trend using a process-based crop model (DSSAT-CERES-Wheat), to check if and how the weather has already affected the long-term wheat yields. This study would demonstrate the importance of knowing whether climate change is affecting crop growth and development. Thus, with this knowledge, cropping systems can be adapted to upcoming climates ensuring food security. (AU)