Impact of climate on grain legume yield stability

• Applicant: Dr. Moritz Reckling
• Subject Area: Plant Cultivation, Plant Nutrition, Agricultural Technology
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 420661662

• Final Report Year: 2022

Final Report Abstract

In the face of a changing climate, yield stability is becoming increasingly important for farmers and plant breeding. Long-term field experiments (LTEs) generate data sets that allow the quantification of stability for different agronomic treatments and the impacts of climate. In this project we provided guidance for the most commonly encountered methodological issues when analyzing yield stability in LTEs and discussed the pros and cons of different approaches and provide solutions. We conclude to make ample use of linking up data sets, and to publish data, so that different approaches can be compared, and finally, consider the impacts of the choice of methods on the results when interpreting data of yield stability analyses. Consistent use of the developed guidelines may provide a basis for robust analyses of yield stability in LTEs. Yield stability of grain legumes decreased significantly in selected sites. Our data showed a positive association between temperature during different periods and yield instability, and a positive relationship between temperature variability and yield instability. Annual precipitation did not affect yield stability but precipitation during specific periods did. We conclude that the analysis of LTEs enables detecting trends in yield stability changes over time. In the two sites with a higher increase in temperature (Borgeby and Berlin-Dahlem) there was a strong positive association between climate variability and yield instability for grain legumes. We also provide first evidence for a comparable or even higher yield stability of soybean compared to other grain legumes in Europe and the impact of heat and drought on the crops’ yield variability. The results from our soybean simulations and climate data analysis identified a potential productivity increase by 4.2% by the mid-century under climate change and wet conditions at harvest and incidental cold spells as the current key challenges for high yield stability. According to the simulations, drought and heat will become the dominant drivers for higher yield stability in the future. The knowledge from this project support efforts in plant breeding and adapting the agronomic management of grain legumes to support the protein transition in Europe.

Publications

• Grain Yield Stability of Cereal-Legume Intercrops Is Greater Than Sole Crops in More Productive Conditions. Agriculture, 11(3), 255.
  Weih, Martin; Karley, Alison J.; Newton, Adrian C.; Kiær, Lars P.; Scherber, Christoph; Rubiales, Diego; Adam, Eveline; Ajal, James; Brandmeier, Jana; Pappagallo, Silvia; Villegas-Fernández, Angel; Reckling, Moritz & Tavoletti, Stefano
  
• Methods of yield stability analysis in long-term field experiments. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 41(2).
  Reckling, Moritz; Ahrends, Hella; Chen, Tsu-Wei; Eugster, Werner; Hadasch, Steffen; Knapp, Samuel; Laidig, Friedrich; Linstädter, Anja; Macholdt, Janna; Piepho, Hans-Peter; Schiffers, Katja & Döring, Thomas F.
  
• Yield variability trends of winter wheat and spring barley grown during 1932–2019 in the Askov Long-term Experiment. Field Crops Research, 264, 108083.
  Macholdt, J.; Hadasch, S.; Piepho, H.-P.; Reckling, M.; Taghizadeh-Toosi, A. & Christensen, B.T.
  
• Agro-economic prospects for expanding soybean production beyond its current northerly limit in Europe. European Journal of Agronomy, 133, 126415.
  Karges, Kathleen; Bellingrath-Kimura, Sonoko D.; Watson, Christine A.; Stoddard, Frederick L.; Halwani, Mosab & Reckling, Moritz
  
• Diversification improves the performance of cereals in European cropping systems. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 42(6).
  Reckling, Moritz; Albertsson, Johannes; Vermue, Anthony; Carlsson, Georg; Watson, Christine A.; Justes, Eric; Bergkvist, Göran; Jensen, Erik Steen & Topp, Cairistiona F. E.
  
• Future area expansion outweighs increasing drought risk for soybean in Europe. Global Change Biology, 29(5), 1340-1358.
  Nendel, Claas; Reckling, Moritz; Debaeke, Philippe; Schulz, Susanne; Berg‐Mohnicke, Michael; Constantin, Julie; Fronzek, Stefan; Hoffmann, Munir; Jakšić, Snežana; Kersebaum, Kurt‐Christian; Klimek‐Kopyra, Agnieszka; Raynal, Hélène; Schoving, Céline; Stella, Tommaso & Battisti, Rafael