New APSIM Paper: Heat shocks increasingly impede grain filling but have little effect on grain setting across the Australian wheatbelt

A new publication in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology can be found here.

The authors used a modified version of the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) to investigate wheat response to increased average temperature and heat shocks across the Australian wheatbelt over 1985-2017. They estimated that increasing average temperatures have resulted in shortening the crop cycle by 1.6 days per decade since 1985, for standard management practices (i.e. mid-maturing cultivar Janz sown on 15 May). The warming during this period resulted in losses in grain number and individual grain weight rising by 1.0 and 4.0% per decade nationally, with an overall yield loss of 4.6% per decade. As temperatures are projected to keep rising with increased heat events, the authors concluded adapting wheat crops to warmer environments appears to be a priority to maintain or enhance yield.