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Title: Unstable crop yields reveal opportunities for site-specific adaptations to climate variability

Abstract

Water deficit and water excess constitute severe stresses that limit crop yield and are likely to intensify as climate becomes more variable. Regional crop production aggregates for the US Midwest indicate widespread yield losses in past decades due to both extreme rainfall and water limited conditions, though the degree to which these weather impacts are related to site-specific factors such as landscape position and soils has not been examined in a systematic manner. This study offers observational evidence from a large sample of commercial crop fields to support the hypothesis that landscape position is the primary mediator of crop yield responses to weather within unstable field zones (i.e., zones where yields tend to fluctuate between high and low, depending on the year). Results indicate that yield losses in unstable zones driven by water excess and deficits occur throughout a wide range of seasonal rainfall, even simultaneously under normal weather. Field areas prone to water stress are shown to lag as much as 23–33% below the field average during drought years and 26–33% during deluge years. By combining large-scale spatial datasets, we identify 2.65 million hectares of water-stress prone cropland, and estimate an aggregated economic loss impact of $536M USD yr-1,more » 4.0 million tons yr-1 of less CO2 fixed in crop biomass, and 52.6 Gg yr-1 of more reactive N in the environment. Yield stability maps can be used to spatially implement adaptation practices to mitigate weather-induced stresses in the most vulnerable cropland« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ORCiD logo
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1619687
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1637516
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0018409; FC02-07ER64494
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Scientific Reports
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Volume: 10 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; agroecology; hydrology

Citation Formats

Martinez-Feria, Rafael A., and Basso, Bruno. Unstable crop yields reveal opportunities for site-specific adaptations to climate variability. United Kingdom: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-59494-2.
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Martinez-Feria, Rafael A., & Basso, Bruno. Unstable crop yields reveal opportunities for site-specific adaptations to climate variability. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59494-2
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Martinez-Feria, Rafael A., and Basso, Bruno. Wed . "Unstable crop yields reveal opportunities for site-specific adaptations to climate variability". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59494-2.
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@article{osti_1619687,
title = {Unstable crop yields reveal opportunities for site-specific adaptations to climate variability},
author = {Martinez-Feria, Rafael A. and Basso, Bruno},
abstractNote = {Water deficit and water excess constitute severe stresses that limit crop yield and are likely to intensify as climate becomes more variable. Regional crop production aggregates for the US Midwest indicate widespread yield losses in past decades due to both extreme rainfall and water limited conditions, though the degree to which these weather impacts are related to site-specific factors such as landscape position and soils has not been examined in a systematic manner. This study offers observational evidence from a large sample of commercial crop fields to support the hypothesis that landscape position is the primary mediator of crop yield responses to weather within unstable field zones (i.e., zones where yields tend to fluctuate between high and low, depending on the year). Results indicate that yield losses in unstable zones driven by water excess and deficits occur throughout a wide range of seasonal rainfall, even simultaneously under normal weather. Field areas prone to water stress are shown to lag as much as 23–33% below the field average during drought years and 26–33% during deluge years. By combining large-scale spatial datasets, we identify 2.65 million hectares of water-stress prone cropland, and estimate an aggregated economic loss impact of $536M USD yr-1, 4.0 million tons yr-1 of less CO2 fixed in crop biomass, and 52.6 Gg yr-1 of more reactive N in the environment. Yield stability maps can be used to spatially implement adaptation practices to mitigate weather-induced stresses in the most vulnerable cropland},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-020-59494-2},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
number = 1,
volume = 10,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {2020},
month = {2}
}
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Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59494-2
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Cited by: 25 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Location of sample crop fields and subfield classifications. (a) Geographic distribution of sample crop fields used for the analysis (see Table S1 for details). Each field was subdivided into 0.09 ha grid cells, which were then classified according to: (b) position in the landscape based on digital elevation models;more » and (c) long-term crop yield stability derived from historical yield maps collected with combine yield monitors (at least 3 yr. for each field). Color ramp in (b) indicates topographic position index (TPI) and in (c) areas of stable and unstable yields.« less
All figures and tables (6 total)
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