Nonlinear heat effects on African maize as evidenced by historical yield trials

An analysis of over 20,000 historical African maize trials suggests the crop will better cope with climate change under rain-fed management. For a 1 °C temperature rise, optimal rain-fed conditions would mean 65% of maize-growing areas in Africa would be likely to experience yield losses, compared with 100% under drought conditions.

[1]  R. H. Shaw,et al.  Water Deficit Effects on Corn. II. Grain Components1 , 1970 .

[2]  G. F. Arkin,et al.  Water Deficit Timing Effects on Yield Components in Maize , 1989 .

[3]  T. Hodges.  Predicting Crop Phenology , 1990 .

[4]  R. A. Fischer,et al.  Physiological and Morphological Traits Associated with Spring Wheat Yield Under Hot, Irrigated Conditions , 1994 .

[5]  G. Edmeades,et al.  The importance of the anthesis-silking interval in breeding for drought tolerance in tropical maize , 1996 .

[6]  Gregory O. Edmeades,et al.  Breeding for drought and nitrogen stress tolerance in maize: From theory to practice , 2000 .

[7]  James W. Jones,et al.  Wading through a swamp of complete confusion: how to choose a method for estimating soil water retention parameters for crop models , 2002 .

[8]  Philip K. Thornton,et al.  The potential impacts of climate change on maize production in Africa and Latin America in 2055 , 2003 .

[9]  K. Cassman,et al.  Rice yields decline with higher night temperature from global warming. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[10]  G. Fischer,et al.  Socio-economic and climate change impacts on agriculture: an integrated assessment, 1990–2080 , 2005, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[11]  Marianne Bänziger,et al.  Breeding for improved abiotic stress tolerance in maize adapted to southern Africa , 2006 .

[12]  C. Tebaldi,et al.  Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030 , 2008, Science.

[13]  N. Ramankutty,et al.  Farming the planet: 2. Geographic distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary production in the year 2000 , 2008 .

[14]  A. Fehér,et al.  The effect of drought and heat stress on reproductive processes in cereals. , 2007, Plant, cell & environment.

[15]  Gustavo A. Slafer,et al.  Breeding for Yield Potential and Stress Adaptation in Cereals , 2008 .

[16]  W. Schlenker,et al.  Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to U.S. crop yields under climate change , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[17]  A. Leakey.  Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and the future of C4 crops for food and fuel , 2009, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[18]  G. Alagarswamy,et al.  Spatial variation of crop yield response to climate change in East Africa , 2009 .

[19]  Glenn Denning,et al.  Input Subsidies to Improve Smallholder Maize Productivity in Malawi: Toward an African Green Revolution , 2009, PLoS biology.

[20]  D. Lobell,et al.  On the use of statistical models to predict crop yield responses to climate change , 2010 .

[21]  D. Lobell,et al.  Robust negative impacts of climate change on African agriculture , 2010, Environmental Research Letters.

[22]  M. Auffhammer,et al.  Rice yields in tropical/subtropical Asia exhibit large but opposing sensitivities to minimum and maximum temperatures , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.