Climate Change and Cereal Crops Growing in Hungary

va Erdlyi a, Antal Ferenczy b, Daniella Boksai c

a Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of Mathematics and Informatics, H-1118 Budapest, Villnyi t 29. eva.erdelyi@uni-corvinus.hu b Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of Mathematics and Informatics, H-1118 Budapest, Villnyi t 29. antal.ferenczy@uni-corvinus.hu c Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of Mathematics and Informatics, H-1118 Budapest, Villnyi t 29. daniellaboksai@yahoo.com

Abstract
Climate, climate change basically determines agricultural production. In Hungary the risk of maize and winter wheat production has increased in the last few decades. Seeing the big increase in risk of maize production, we decided to use a crop model for analyzing the biomass changes. We can say that moderate warming can increase the yield, but more increase of the temperature can cause big losses. Our next step was to test the efficacy of three dripping irrigation systems. We found that biomass and grain levels increased significantly in all scenarios. We also saw that phenological phases of maize shortened and happened earlier. The risk increase in wheat production gave us many questions as well. Climate change might be good for the plant, because it can easily stand hot and dry conditions. We analyzed wheather the precipitation and temperature needs of winter wheat will be satisfied or not in its important periods of growing. We have also counted the number of days with optimal temperature for the enzyme activity, which determines the gluten content of the grains, the main quality factor. We saw that the frequency of extreme weather events has increased are more probable, so the future is very unpredictable. Considering these possible changes, we need to prepare for the future. Preventive adaptation strategies are required for dealing with consequences and reducing the damages. During our research we used some of the most commonly accepted scenarios downscaled to Debrecen, an important centre of our agricultural production. Key words: climate change, maize production, winter wheat, phenological phases, modelling.

1 Introduction
Information about weather and predicting the potential climate change is of great importance all over the world. Climate basically determines agricultural production. In Hungary, results show that we must count with an increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation. In addition, extreme weather events such as droughts, heat-waves and floods have increased. Using geographical analogues, Gal and Horvth (2006) showed that the possible future climate - predicted by the scenarios - would be similar to the present climate of South-Southeast Europe. Rising temperatures may allow earlier sowing dates, enhance crop growth and increase potential crop yield. On the other hand, rising temperatures increase the crops water demand. In agriculture we face several decision problems in which, among proficiency and sustainability, the risk aspects have to be investigated more and more seriously. In Hungary the risk of production is especially meaningful as it has considerably been increased in the last few decades. The increase of risk in maize and winter wheat production we investigated (2005) in four counties in Hungary for the period 1951-1990, based on yearly production data. We proved that the risk of maize and winter wheat production has increased for this time-interval in all the four counties, independently from the risk aversion. The only difference is that the deviance of the distribution of wheat yield has increased slowly; for corn yield, however the change manifested with serious extreme values. In every case we got that the situations become worse with time. As maize is an energy crop, we analysed the impacts of climate change on its growing periods using the 4M model for different climate scenarios as weather inputs. We (Boksai, 2006) examined the effects of changing temperature on the proportion of the parts of the plant in biomass, as well. Debrecen, the basic object of our calculations, is an important centre of agricultural production in Hungary, so we would like to interpret the results in this aspect.

2 Matherial and methods

2.1.Weather data The applied daily precipitation and average temperature data are from the monitoring database of OMSZ (Hungarian Meteorological Service). 2.2. Scenarios Climate scenarios can be defined as relevant and adequate pictures of how the climate may look in the future. The simulations were run for the daily average temperature and precipitation amount forecasted by climate scenarios. During our research, we applied the principles defined by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and we used some of the most commonly accepted scenarios presented in international reports, such as Scenario BASE which is the base of all other scenarios with the parameters of our days. Scenarios created by Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (USA), GFDL2534 and GFDL5564 (with a finer resolution) UKHI and UKLO (high and low-resolution equilibrium) and UKTR (high-resolution transient climate change experiment) worked out by United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO). For scenario generation, the so-called GCM-s (General Circulation Model or Global Climate Model) are used, in this work GCMs downscaled to Debrecen, the basic object of our calculations, because its an important centre of agricultural production in Hungary. The scaling of the scenarios for the region Hungary was made in the frame of CLIVARA project (Climate Change, Climatic Variability and Agriculture in Europe). 2.3. Crop results The data of the Hungarian regional yearly crop results of corn and wheat were applied. The data were gained from the database Agro-ecological Integrated Informatics System (AIIR). 2.4. 4M model In our crop model research we used the 4M model, which has been developed by the Hungarian Agricultural Model Designer Group from the various institutes in the country. It contains several models to describe the physiological interactions of soil - plant systems and offers a possibility of building up different system models in it for the specific purposes of the users need. The CERES model was chosen to be a starting point, as for several other crop models in the world. The other calculations were made using the KKT Program designed for this project at the Department of Mathematics and Informatics at Corvinus University of Budapest and in MS Excel using the daily precipitation, minimum and maximum temperature forecasted by climate scenarios.

3 Results
In the following, we want to present several results. 3.1. Maize production Seeing the big increase in risk in maize production (2005), we decided to analyze the future maize production using a crop model and the same climate scenarios. We wanted to see, what can we expect from maize yield in the Debrecen region. For analyzing the biomass changes we used the 4M model for different climate scenarios mentioned above as weather inputs. Seeing the results (Fig.1), we can say that moderate warming can increase the yield, but more increase of the temperature can cause big losses. We have also showed that the variability doesnt change much for the used climate scenarios, but the estimated mean yield does (Table 1.).

20000 16000 12000 8000 4000 0 1 3

Maize production estimated by climate scenarios using the 4M model

BASE GFDL2534 GFDL5564 UKHI UKLO UKTR3140

9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 years

Fig.1. Estimated maize production for the region of Debrecen

Table1 Maize production (average with the measures of variability:CV) estimated for the region of Debrecen

SCENARIO

BASE

UKHI 5831.87 2048.57 0.35

UKLO 9806.97 2497.38 0.25

UKTR3140 7101.35 2372.81 0.33

GFDL2534 7941.55 2557.62 0.32

GFDL5564 10600.19 2887.04 0.27

average 9429.65 st.deviation 2877.95 CV 0.31

Our next step was to test the efficacy of three dripping irrigation systems. The location of our experiment was the same, the Debrecen region. We used the same 4M model for climate scenarios mentioned above as weather inputs. Our standard was BASE, which represents the current weather conditions. Biomass and grain levels decreased in the case of GFDL2534 and UKHI, compared to BASE. When comparing runs without treatment and runs with irrigation, we found that biomass and grain levels increased significantly in all scenarios. Irrigation A: 3*80 mm before sowing and 5*80 mm in July and Irrigation B: 5*30 mm in July had the largest effect on biomass and grain levels. Phenological phases of maize shortened and happened earlier. Our results have shown that climate change in itself does not increase biomass or grain levels, while significant increase in yield can be reached by irrigation. Analysing the climate scenarios for the same region in the future we saw that the sum of the temperature averages increases over time in the past and the scenarios predict an even more drastic increase. This means that the starting date (sowing), ending date (ripening) and the length of the phenophases of growing plants will change, too. We compared the sums of the precipitations for the growing season of crops, as well. We can see a slow decrease of the accumulated precipitation for these periods in the region of Debrecen and that the scenarios predict smaller values in the future. We can also see a big variability in the amount of precipitation, which means that the frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, has increased are more probable. Wheat production is determined mostly by temperature, because it is of great importance in its growing. Climate change might be good for winter wheat, because its yield rises with less precipitation in some periods of growth. It can easily stand dry conditions, because it comes from regions that typically experience drought. But the effects of climate change through changing temperature and precipitation conditions can be very different in different phenological phases of the plant. 3.2. Winter wheat production The most evident, quite high risk increase of wheat production was in Hajd-Bihar county (Ladnyi et al, 2005), which capital is Debrecen. Moreover the risk increase here was even faster than in other observed counties. We wanted to see what we might expect in crop production by analyzing the precipitation and temperature needs of winter wheat. We used the same six climate scenarios. We examined, by comparing the results of these data, whether the needs of winter wheat will be satisfied or not. We wanted to see what climate scenarios predict for the periods of importance in wheat production. The periods we analyzed are the sowing-emergence phenological phase, the stem elongation spikelet initiation period and the anthesis-grain filling phenological phase (Table 2).

Table 2. Winter wheat precipitation needs and the forecasted average amounts with measures of variability (CV): yearly, sowingend of growing, sowing-emergence (ph.ph1), stem elongation spikelet initiation (ph.ph2) and anthesis grain filling (ph.ph3)

precipitation sums Need BASE average CV UKHI average CV UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564 average CV average CV average CV average CV

yearly 500-600 520.04 0.18 433.62 0.2 635.71 0.18 499.02 0.17 525.76 0.17 575.44 0.18

growing period 390-480 392.43 0.2 367.4 0.23 505.08 0.2 399.9 0.19 413.21 0.19 438.28 0.2

ph.ph.1 10-45 23.65 0.69 19.68 1.02 30.15 0.7 22.7 0.69 24.3 0.69 25.12 0.7

ph.ph.2 70-80 51.71 0.61 32.56 0.95 68.65 0.61 50.65 0.62 50.32 0.62 57.77 0.66

ph.ph3 75-160 98.58 0.43 65.43 0.56 120.2 0.41 85.64 0.43 86.14 0.42 118.86 0.43

Winter wheat is very sensitive to meteorological circumstances when it is producing the most of its organic substances, in the stem elongation spikelet initiation period. In this period precipitation is of higher importance than temperature. The shortage of precipitation can be seen in leaf development. The forecasted values are not very good for any of the climate scenarios we used. Analysing the average values of the predicted temperature values and precipitation amounts we compare the climate scenarios in Figure 2.
SOWING - EMERGENCE
20
BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

SOWING - EMERGENCE
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 year

BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

temperature

15 10 5 0 1 3 5 7 9

precipitation

11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

31

year

STEM ELONGATION - SPIKELET INITIATION

26 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 10 1 3 5 7 9
BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

STEM ELONGATION - SPIKELET INITIATION

180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 year

BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

temperature

11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

precipitation

31

year

ANTHESIS - GRAIN FILLING

28 26

precipitation

temperature

24 22 20 18 16 1 3 5 7 9

BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

ANTHESIS - GRAIN FILLING

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 year 19 21 23 25 27

BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

year

29 31

Fig.2 The average temperature and precipitation values for the phenological phase of winter wheat in Debrecen predicted by the climate scenarios

Knowing the temperature needs of winter wheat we can say that the sowing-emergence phenological phase might become shorter due to warmer temperatures the scenarios predict quite often in this period of growing. In the stem elongation spikelet initiation phenological phase the climate scenarios show big variability in the frequency of the extreme temperature values, but future doesnt show big change in the average. They predict a little higher temperature in May, which is good for the plant and also in June, which is harmful for it. The third period we made calculations for is the anthesis-grain filling phenological phase. In this period, the plant develops its generative organs. The scenarios dont show big variability and extreme temperatures and precipitation amounts too many times, so this period is in favour of the plant. The measures of variability (CV) are unfortunately too high especially for the values of the phenological phases. This means that the standard deviations are great and the future is very unpredictable. Using the KKT Program we can get the number of the years when the needs of the plant are not satisfied, but it can give us information about climate change indices, too. With this program, we can calculate climate indices, such as R95 (the percent of days in a given year, when the daily precipitation amount on a wet day is out of the 95th percentile calculated for a given period), the monthly maximum 1 (or more)-day precipitation, the precipitation intensity index, the annual count of days when the precipitation amount is greater than a given value, the maximum length of dry and wet spells and others. They also show that precipitation varies significantly. These results can give us information for predicting extreme conditions, too. It is very important to know as much as possible about factors which influence the wheat yield, but is it also very important to examine the quality factors as well. The quality of the grain depends on its gluten and starch content. The gluten content of wheat grain is a determinative quality factor especially in baking industry. It depends on the enzyme activity of the plant which is influenced by the temperature. The optimal temperature for the enzyme activity is 17-23 C . We have counted the number of days with optimal temperature for the enzyme activity (Table 3, Fig 3).
0

190 170
number of days

number of days with optimal temperature for the enzyme activity (17-23 oC)
BASE UKHI UKLO UKTR GF2534 GF5564

150 130 110 90 70 50

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 year

Fig 3. Number of days in a year with 17-23 0C temperatures in Debrecen predicted by the climate scenarios Table 3. The average number of days in a year with optimal temperatures for enzyme activity and its variability in Debrecen predicted by the climate scenarios

average Coeff. of variation

BASE 88,58 0,29

UKHI 120,14 0,29

UKLO 88,05 0,3

UKTR 97,16 0,28

GF2534 92,57 0,28

GF5564 101,75 0,29

Results show that climate change might be good for winter wheat in this sense.

4 Conclusion
Climate change already has considerable impacts on the environment, human health and society, and these are expected to become more severe in the future. Climate change affects agriculture in many direct and indirect ways. Rising temperatures may allow earlier sowing dates, enhance crop growth and increase potential crop yield. On the other hand, rising temperatures increase the crops water demand. In

combination with changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures are expected to lead to increasing crop yields in areas with sufficient water supply and decreasing yields in areas with hot and dry conditions. Considering possible future changes we have to answer many questions about plant protection, safe food supply, economical factors and others in order to prepare for the future. Living under changing climate conditions, one of our most urgent tasks is to create well-designed descriptiveforecasting systems, as well as to define the optimal preparing and response strategies to the conditions in change. Climate change already has considerable impacts on the environment, human health and society, which are expected to become more severe in future. In addition, extreme weather events such as droughts, heat-waves and floods have increased. The impacts of climate change on human life are various, preventive adaptation strategies are required for dealing with consequences and reducing the damages. Acknowledgements. Our work was supported by OTKA T042583 tender and the Jedlik nyos NKFP600079/2005 program.

5 References
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