Wheat

Main Contacts for Initiative

Pierre Martre, Senthold Asseng, Frank Ewert, & Heidi Webber

Brief Description of Activity

AgMIP-wheat aims to improve and apply crop models in climate change impact and adaptation assessments by bringing together crop modelers, experimentalists, breeders, a biostatistician and a climate scientist working with field measurements and future scenarios. We also explore point simulations for upscaling and compare methods for impact assessments.

Overview of Participants

• 32 wheat modeling groups

• Field experimentalists, breeders

• Biostatistician, climate scientist.

Current Research Focus

• Model improvement & application

• Yield/protein – T, CO2, water & adaptation; Canopy Temperature; Traits for high yields

• 1.5/2.0C impact

Reports or Papers Submitted/Published soon

Zhao et al. 2017 PNAS; Wang et al. Nature Plants 2017; Webber et al. 2017 FCR; Webber et al. 2018 AFM; Maiorano et al. 2017 FCR, Martre et al. 2017 ODJAR

Recent Noteworthy Finding

• Defined traits from field data for improved heat resistance – shown to improve yields globally, • CC will reduce grain protein concentration in wheat, • 1.5/2.0C will increase frequency of low yields. • Satellite meeting on Apr 23; phase 4, side activities • Present results on wheat and on method comparison

Prior Wheat Updates

The goals of the AgMIP wheat pilot team are to compare and improve wheat models in order to simulate better the impact of climate change as well as to explore adaptation options for improving both agricultural sustainability and global food security. The wheat team is led by Senthold Asseng, University of Florida, USA and Frank Ewert, University of Bonn, Germany. Recently, Pierre Martre, INRA, France joined the leadership team of AgMIP-Wheat. The idea of the AgMIP Wheat team was conceived in November 2010 at the first Global AgMIP Workshop at Long Beach in California. Since 2011, when the AgMIP Wheat Pilot Team first met in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to establish an initial pilot work plan, and up until 2013 concluded two phases, while currently have entered its third phase.

Members of AgMIP-Wheat and the Expert Working Group Meeting on Plant and Crop Modeling of the international Wheat Initiative at the “Symposium and Workshop on Modeling Wheat under a Changing Environment: Model Intercomparison and Improvement” at Clermont-Ferrand, France, June 24-26, 2014

AgMIP Wheat Team June 2014

The Wheat team started its pilot phase with a collaboration of scientists representing 27 wheat models from around the world and intercompared their models for response to CO₂, temperature, rainfall, and other factors at four sentinel sites representing variation in wheat productivity. This study indicated that models need improvement when dealing with increasing temperatures. The results of the pilot study are published in Nature Climate Change (Asseng et al. 2013). The second phase, which was commenced in June 2013 at a workshop at CIMMYT in Mexico, included by then 30 models. In addition, several field experimentalists and crop physiologists joined the team to help with field data and model improvement. The 30 models are currently compared against growth and yield observations from field experiments exposed to a wide range of temperatures, including artificial heating and a range of global locations. The third phase was initiated in June 2014 at INRA in Clermont-Ferrand workshop in France and has the scope of assembling heat shock measurements and CO₂ by temperature response data for an independent testing of currently improved models during the next year. The workshop in Clermont-Ferrand, in which new temperature response

routines were explored and compared against measurements, was held in conjunction with the first Expert Working Group meeting on Plant and Crop Modeling of the international Wheat Initiative. The Expert Working Group on Plant and Crop Modeling is currently chaired by the AgMIP-Wheat team leaders and many from AgMIP-Wheat are also members of the Expert Working Group. As the time passes, more and more wheat modelers express interest to join AgMIP-Wheat. AgMIP Wheat Team meetings up until now:

First meeting of AgMIP Wheat in 2011 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Global AgMIP Workshop in October 2012 in Rome, Italy.
CIMMYT Workshop in June 2013 in Mexico.
Global AgMIP Workshop in October 2013 in New York, the USA.
Workshop in conjunction with the Expert Working Group Meeting on Plant and Crop Modeling of the International Wheat Initiative in June 2014 at Clermont-Ferrand, France.

References

Asseng S, Ewert F, Rosenzweig C, Jones JW, Hatfield JL, Ruane AC, Boote KJ, Thorburn PJ, Rotter RP, Cammarano D, Brisson N, Basso B, Martre P, Aggarwal PK, Angulo C, Bertuzzi P, Biernath C, Challinor AJ, Doltra J, Gayler S, Goldberg R, Grant R, Heng L, Hooker J, Hunt LA, Ingwersen J, Izaurralde RC, Kersebaum KC, Mueller C, Kumar SN, Nendel C, O’Leary G, Olesen JE, Osborne TM, Palosuo T, Priesack E, Ripoche D, Semenov MA, Shcherbak I, Steduto P, Stoeckle C, Stratonovitch P, Streck T, Supit I, Tao F, Travasso M, Waha K, Wallach D, White JW, Williams JR, Wolf J (2013) Uncertainty in simulating wheat yields under climate change. Nature Climate Change 3: 827-832. doi: 10.1038/nclimate1916. Asseng S, Ewert F, Martre P, Rötter RP, Lobell DB, Cammarano D, Kimball BA, Ottman MJ, Wall GW, White JW, Reynolds MP, Alderman PD, Prasad PVV, Aggarwal PK, Anothai J, Basso B, Biernath C, Challinor AJ, De Sanctis G, Doltra J, Fereres E, Garcia-Vila M, Gayler S, Hoogenboom G, Hunt LA, Izaurralde RC, Jabloun M, Jones CD, Kersebaum KC, Koehler A-K, Müller C, Naresh Kumar S, Nendel C, O’Leary G, Olesen JE, Palosuo T, Priesack E, Eyshi Rezaei E, Ruane AC, Semenov MA, Shcherbak I, Stöckle C, Stratonovitch P, Streck T, Supit I, Tao F, Thorburn PJ, Waha K, Wang E, Wallach D, Wolf J, Zhao Z, Zhu Y (2014) Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production. Nature Climate Change. doi:10.1038/nclimate2470 (2014) Martre P, Wallach D, Asseng S, Ewert F, Jones JW, Rötter RP, Boote KJ, Ruane AC, Thorburn PJ, Cammarano D, Hatfield JL, Rosenzweig C, Aggarwal PK, Angulo C, Basso B, Bertuzzi P, Biernath C, Brisson N, Challinor AJ, Doltra J, Gayler S, Goldberg R, Grant RF, Heng L, Hooker J, Hunt LA, Ingwersen J, Izaurralde RC, Kersebaum KC, Müller C, Kumar SN, Nendel C, O’leary G, Olesen JE, Osborne TM, Palosuo T, Priesack E, Ripoche D, Semenov MA, Shcherbak I, Steduto P, Stöckle CO, Stratonovitch P, Streck T, Supit I, Tao F, Travasso M, Waha K, White JW, Wolf J (2014) Multimodel ensembles of wheat growth: many models are better than one. Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12768 O’Leary G, Christy B, Nuttall J, Huth N, Cammarano D, Stöckle C, Basso B, Shcherbak I, Fitzgerald G, Lou Q, Farre-Codina I, Palta J, Asseng S (2015) Response of wheat growth, grain yield and water use to elevated CO2 under a Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment and modelling in a semi-arid environment. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12830