Size and variability of crop productivity both impacted by CO2 enrichment and warming-A case study of 4 year field experiment in a Chinese paddy

Jianqing Wang, Xiaoyu Liu, Xuhui Zhang, Pete Smith, Lianqing Li, Timothy R. Filley, Kun Cheng*, Mingxing Shen, Yinbiao He, Genxing Pan

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

China is a key global region vulnerable to climate change; however, limited studies have focused on the combined impacts of atmospheric CO2 enrichment and warming on crop production in arable land, especially in rice paddies in China. To address this issue, a 4 year open-air field experiment during 2010-2014 was conducted to simulate the impact of climate change on crop production in a rice paddy in southeast of China. Four treatments including the ambient condition (CK), CO2 enrichment (500 ppmv, CE), warming of canopy air (2 degrees C above the ambient, WA), and the combined CO2 enrichment and warming (CW) were used to investigate the responses of total biomass, crop yield and harvest index. In general, different treatments significantly affected wheat and rice production. Compared to CK, CE significantly increased grain yield of rice by 8%. In contrast, the decreases of 26.2% and 10% in wheat and rice yield were observed under WA. However, there was no significant difference of wheat production between CW and CK, while rice yield and biomass were slightly decreased by a mean of 4.8% and 5.3% over 4 years, indicating the positive effect of CO2 enrichment was unable to compensate for the negative impact of warming. The interannual variations of the responses were also observed in this study. The variation of wheat yields during 4 years was much higher than that of rice yields; however, significant changes in the stability of rice biomass and harvest index were observed under CE and WA. The results indicated both stabilizing and increasing grain yield under climate change are major challenges for agriculture in developing countries. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)40-49
Number of pages10
JournalAgriculture Ecosystems & Environment
Volume221
Early online date29 Jan 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2016

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgement
Construction and maintenance of the experiment system was funded by the state Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest “Climate Change Impacts on Crop Production and Mitigation” under a grant number 200903003. This work was financially supported by Ministry of Science and Technology of China under a grant number 2012BAC19B01 and Department of Science and Technology of Jiangsu province under a grant number BK20150684. The international cooperation was funded by “111 project” (B12009) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). The contribution of Pete Smith was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and the United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) under UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN). The contribution of Timothy Filley was also funded by the state foreign expert agency under a project of Foreign High-end expert program. The authors thank Jiangsu Tianniang Agro-Technology Company Ltd. for the assistance in maintaining the experiment system.

Keywords

  • crop production
  • climate change
  • CO2 enrichment
  • warming
  • rice-wheat rotation

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