The paper “Divergent responses of maize yield to precipitation in the United States” is published in Environmental Research Letters on Dec 30 2021. This work is done by Dr. Ru Xu.
Maize yield in the US has been substantially affected by both the long-term climate changes and extreme climates in the past 30 years. Compared with the well-established temperature response, crop yield response to precipitation receives much less attention and is much more uncertain. The inadequate knowledge limits our understanding and assessment of crop yield response to climate change.
This study provides a spatially-explicit quantification of the precipitation response of maize yield in the US. The precipitation responses of maize yield are classified to five types: linear increase, linear decrease, inverted-U shape, U-shape, and unresponsive.
The precipitation responses of maize are highly heterogeneous across the US, reflecting the interactive effects of climate conditions, irrigation, and soil properties.
The current process-based crop models could not capture this heterogeneous precipitation responses, resulting in substantial yield overestimation under extreme wet conditions.
Xu, R., Li, Y., Guan, K., Zhao, L., Peng, B., Miao, C., & Fu, B. (2022). Divergent responses of maize yield to precipitation in the United States. Environmental Research Letters, 17(1), 014016.link