Simulating the Impact of Climate Change on Growth and Yield of Maize Using CERES-Maize Model under Temperate Kashmir

Abstract

Climate variability has been and continues to be, the principal source of fluctuations in global food production in countries of the developing world and is of serious concern. Process-based models use simplified functions to express the interactions between crop growth and the major environmental factors that affect crops (i.e., climate, soils and management), and many have been used in climate impact assessments. Average of 10 years weather data from 1985 to 2010, maximum temperature shows an increasing trend ranges from 18.5 to 20.5°C.This means there is an increase of 2°C within a span of 25 years. Decreasing trend was observed with respect to precipitation was observed with the same data. The magnitude of decrease was from 925 mm to 650 mm of rainfall which is almost decrease of 275 mm of rainfall in 25 years. Future climate for 2011-2090 from A1B scenario extracted from PRECIS run shows that overall maximum and minimum temperature increase by 5.39°C (±1.76) and 5.08°C (±1.37) also precipitation will decrease by 3094.72 mm to 2578.53 (±422.12) The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of climate variability and change on maize growth and yield of Srinagar Kashmir. Two enhanced levels of temperature (maximum and minimum by 2 and 4°C) and CO2 enhanced by 100 ppm & 200 ppm were used in this study with total combinations of 9 with one normal condition.  Elevation of maximum and minimum temperature by 4°C anthesis  and maturity of maize was earlier 14 days with a deviation of 18%  and  26 days with a deviation  of 20% respectively. Increase in temperature by 2 to 4°C alone or in combination with enhanced levels of CO2 by 100 and 200 ppm the growth and yield of maize was drastically declined with an reduction of about 40% in grain yield. Alone enhancement of CO2  at both the levels fails show any significant impact on maize yield.