TY - JOUR
T1 - Rainfed maize yield response to management and climate covariability at large spatial scales
AU - Carter, Elizabeth K.
AU - Melkonian, Jeff
AU - Steinschneider, Scott
AU - Riha, Susan J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research received financial support from the State University of New York Diversity Fellowship, the Section of Soil and Crop Sciences in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University , and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture Hatch Program /Project number: NYC-124400. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Jacob Bien, Dr. Kevin Packard, and Dr. Erika Mudrak for assistance with analytical design; Dr. Florian Rohart for assistance utilizing the MMS package in R; Dr. Stephen Shaw for assistance in the analyses, the National Corn Growers Association ( http://www.ncga.com ) for providing the maize data, and the High Plains Regional Climate Center and the University of Missouri for providing the climate data.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2018/6/15
Y1 - 2018/6/15
N2 - Statistical analyses of yield and climate data across large spatial scales are an important method for exploring crop sensitivity to a variable and changing climate. However, a variety of issues complicate the interpretation of climate impacts on yield, including spatial and temporal collinearity among climate variables and between climate and management variables, as well as complex responses of yield to interactions among climate variables across different growth development phases. All of these issues, if unaccounted for, can compromise yield projections under climate change. In this study, we present a series of nested models to analyze rainfed maize (Zea mays L.) yield response to climate (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation) at specific growth-development phases and under different crop management practices. The models, fit using elastic net regression to address collinearity, indicate that spatial gradients in management, which occur at the same scale as climate variability, explain the majority of location-based and total yield variance. Coefficient estimates of yield responses to high temperature/low precipitation conditions during key growth development phases are consistent with reported physiological responses of maize, but only when interaction terms are included between temperature and precipitation. Yield responses to temperature and solar radiation are also modified by prior temperature regime. Overall, failure to parameterize management practices and interactions between temperature and precipitation leads to systemic errors in models linking maize yields to climate impacts at large spatial scales, both under current and projected climate.
AB - Statistical analyses of yield and climate data across large spatial scales are an important method for exploring crop sensitivity to a variable and changing climate. However, a variety of issues complicate the interpretation of climate impacts on yield, including spatial and temporal collinearity among climate variables and between climate and management variables, as well as complex responses of yield to interactions among climate variables across different growth development phases. All of these issues, if unaccounted for, can compromise yield projections under climate change. In this study, we present a series of nested models to analyze rainfed maize (Zea mays L.) yield response to climate (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation) at specific growth-development phases and under different crop management practices. The models, fit using elastic net regression to address collinearity, indicate that spatial gradients in management, which occur at the same scale as climate variability, explain the majority of location-based and total yield variance. Coefficient estimates of yield responses to high temperature/low precipitation conditions during key growth development phases are consistent with reported physiological responses of maize, but only when interaction terms are included between temperature and precipitation. Yield responses to temperature and solar radiation are also modified by prior temperature regime. Overall, failure to parameterize management practices and interactions between temperature and precipitation leads to systemic errors in models linking maize yields to climate impacts at large spatial scales, both under current and projected climate.
KW - Climate variability
KW - Collinearity
KW - Crop management
KW - Maize (Zea mays L.)
KW - Yield
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U2 - 10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.029
DO - 10.1016/j.agrformet.2018.02.029
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85044590955
SN - 0168-1923
VL - 256-257
SP - 242
EP - 252
JO - Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
JF - Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
ER -