Int J Biometeorol DOI 10.1007/s00484-014-0904-7
ORIGINAL PAPER
Effects of climate change on phenological trends and seed cotton yields in oasis of arid regions Jian Huang & Feng Ji
Received: 4 April 2014 / Revised: 7 September 2014 / Accepted: 9 September 2014 # ISB 2014
Abstract Understanding the effects of climatic change on phenological phases of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in oasis of arid regions may help optimize management schemes to increase productivity. This study assessed the impacts of climatic changes on the phenological phases and productivity of spring cotton. The results showed that climatic warming led the dates of sowing seed, seeding emergence, three-leaf, fiveleaf, budding, anthesis, full bloom, cleft boll, boll-opening, boll-opening filling, and stop-growing become earlier by 24.42, 26.19, 24.75, 23.28, 22.62, 15.75, 14.58, 5.37, 2.85, 8.04, and 2.16 days during the period of 1981–2010, respectively. The growth period lengths from sowing seed to seeding emergence and from boll-opening to boll-opening filling were shortened by 1.76 and 5.19 days, respectively. The other growth period lengths were prolonged by 2–9.71 days. The whole growth period length was prolonged by 22.26 days. The stop-growing date was delayed by 2.49–3.46 days for every 1 °C rise in minimum, maximum, and mean temperatures; however, other development dates emerged earlier by 2.17–4.76 days. Rising temperatures during the stage from seeding emergence to three-leaf reduced seed cotton yields. However, rising temperatures increased seed cotton yields in the two stages from anthesis to cleft boll and from bollopening filling to the stop-growing. Increasing accumulated temperatures (AT) had different impacts on different development stages. During the vegetative phase, rising AT led to reduced seed cotton yields, but rising AT during reproductive stage increased seed cotton yields. In conclusion, climatic J. Huang (*) Institute of Desert and Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Urumqi 830002, China e-mail: [email protected] F. Ji Agrometeorological Experimental Station of Wulanwusu, Shihezi 832199, China
warming helpfully obtained more seed cotton yields in oasis of arid regions in northwest China. Changing the sowing date is another way to enhance yields for climate change in the future. Keywords Climate change . Oasis . Phenological phases . Seed cotton yields . Temperature
Introduction Phenology refers to the periodic appearance of life-cycle events and is very important for plant survival and reproduction. Climate change has significant impacts on phenological seasonality in many ecological regions of the world, and it shows the characteristic of prolonging growth period length and advancing phenology (Mearns et al. 1997; Bradley et al. 1999; Menzel and Fabian 1999; Beaubien and Freeland 2000; Menzel 2000; Schwartz and Chen 2002; Fahad 2002; Lu et al. 2006). In mid- and high latitudes, plant development is characterized by a rest period in winter and by an active growing period in spring and summer (Chmielewski et al. 2004). Therefore, the impacts of climate warming on plant phenologies are considered to be of major importance in the northern hemisphere where the growing season length closely depends on temperature (Zhang et al. 2004; Chen et al. 2005; Linderholm 2006). In northern China, increases of air temperatures have resulted in the expansion of winter wheat production to some high-latitude areas where the over-winter survival of winter wheat crops is a challenge in the past. In southern China, increases of air temperatures have shortened the growth periods of some field crops from seeding to maturity, resulting in decreased biomass accumulation and lowered yields (Gao et al. 1995). Climate change has different effects on thermophilic and coolphilic crops. Rising air temperatures may be attributable
Int J Biometeorol
to the change in daily maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures; therefore, it causes the change of phenologies. However, some reports indicate that daily minimum temperatures are rising faster than daily maximum temperatures during recent decades (Menzel et al. 2001). Phenological phases of crops may respond to the changes of both minimum and maximum temperatures, but Alward et al. (1999) observed that rangeland plants responded to the minimum temperatures more sensitively than to the maximum temperatures. Rising mean temperatures can shorten the development stage of coolphilic crops and affect crop yields because shortening of plant growing season length leads to absorption of little radiation and reduction of biomass and yield (Chmielewski et al. 2004). In Australia and Mexico, increase in wheat yield is largely attributed to climate warming (Nicholls 1997; Lobell et al. 2005), whereas in the USA it suggests that it causes a combined loss amounting to $5 billion annually for its negative effects on wheat, maize, and barley production (Lobell and Field 2007). Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a major cash crop in China, with a total production area of about 5.75 million hectares in 2012. There are three major cotton-producing regions: (1) Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), (2) the Yangtze River Basin, and (3) the Yellow River Basin (Hsu and Gale 2001). Climatic conditions in these regions are different. The XUAR is in the northwest China. Summers there are short, hot, and arid, and major production constraints are low night temperatures in spring and autumn. Due to the short growing season, as defined by the occurrence of night frosts, the region is only suitable for early and mid-early maturing varieties, and plastic film mulching is used after sowing to increase soil temperatures and accelerate the growth and development of the seeding. All cotton in XUAR is irrigated (Zhang et al. 2008). Arid area in China accounts for 29.3 % of the total land area (Qian and Yu 2006), and oasis is proper scene in arid regions. Oasis is distributed in every continent and mainly in Asia and Africa. Oasis in China is mainly distributed in the XUAR (the Tarim Basin, the Junggar Basin, the Turpan–Hami Basin, and the Yili Valley), the Gansu Corridor of Gansu province, the Inner Mongolia (the Houtao Plain, the Alashan Plateau, and the west of Erdos Plateau), the south of Yinchuan plain in Ningxia province, and the Qaidam Basin in Qinhai province (Qian and Yu 2006). Oasis area in XUAR amounts to 148,400 km2, which accounts for about 9.2 % of the total area of XUAR (Wen et al. 2003), but over 95 % of the population and 90 % of social wealth in XUAR are assembled in oasis. Cotton is the main crop in oasis, so it has great significance to clear the impacts of climate change on the cotton growth for the sustainable development of oasis economy. The growth of cotton covers the following stages: sowing seed, seeding emergence, three-leaf, five-leaf, budding,
anthesis, full bloom, cleft boll, boll-opening, boll-opening filling, and stop-growing. Temperature is a key factor for the whole growth period of cotton because it needs temperatures of 25–35 °C and covers over 150 days (CIRAD 2006) or at last 1,450 days (Lagandre 2005). Decreasing every 1 °C in mean temperature will greatly delay maturity during the whole growth season (Roussopoulos et al. 1998), and higher temperatures will destroy cotton plant growth (David 1971) and inhibit seed germination (Arndt 1945). These will affect the phenologies and seed cotton yields. But the previous studies mainly focus on the relationships of several development stages and seed cotton yields (Wang et al. 2008; Sawan 2012) or merely analyze relationships between phenologies and accumulated temperatures (AT) of cotton and have not discussed the effects of phenologies and AT on seed cotton yields (Huang and Wang 1999; Lu et al. 2003). Furthermore, temperatures and AT needed in each development stage are different (Huang and Wang 1999; Lu et al. 2003). However, there is little information available regarding the effect of rising temperatures on the changes of each phenological phase of cotton in oasis of arid region. Meanwhile, it is not known whether these factors can affect seed cotton yields in oasis of arid regions, and there are few reports about it at present. It is very important for developing prediction models to understand the association between climatic changes and cotton phenological changes. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of climate changes on each phenological phase, every growth stage, and seed cotton yields during the period from 1981 to 2010 at the cotton fields of the agrometeorological experimental station of Wulanwusu in northwest China.
Materials and methods Study site The agrometeorological experimental station of Wulanwusu (85°49′E, 44°17′N and 468.2 m above sea level) is located in the north oasis of arid regions in XUAR, in northwest China. The station has been managed under the administration of National Meteorological Networks of Central China Meteorological Agency. The soil type is grey desert soil and soil texture is clay-loam soil with organic matter at 15.97 g/kg and total nitrogen at 0.627 g/kg (Pan et al. 2009). The groundwater table is from 8 to 20 m. The long-term (1964– 2010) mean annual precipitation is 220 mm, and the mean annual temperature is 7.7 °C. Frost-free period is about 170 days. According to the agricultural climate division, the region is suitable for planting cotton in the Junggar Basin. Spring cotton is the primary field crop in this region. All agricultural activity under this environment relies on irrigation.
Int J Biometeorol
Weather and crop data Weather parameters including daily maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures, precipitation, and AT (≥10 and ≥0 °C) have been recorded since 1964. The data of all weather parameters were collected by following the “China Agricultural Meteorological Observation Guidelines” (Xu and She 1980) established by Central China Meteorological Agency. In this study, only weather data during the period of 1981–2010 were used because the detailed phenological phases of spring cotton were recorded starting from 1981 by following the same criteria established in the guidelines. Cotton was grown in an area of 2 ha in the station and about 100 m away from buildings, highways, or rivers to avoid any potential microclimatic influence. Cotton was irrigated four to six times during a single growing season with an amount of 345–570 mm/ha water. The whole cotton area was divided into four plots as four replicates. The phenological phases of cotton were observed on 10 individual plants in an area of 2 m2 within each plot. The observation area was marked and all subsequent observations and measurements were made on the plants in the marked area. Cotton plants were observed every another day during the entire growing season each year and the calendar dates were recorded when 50 % of the plants in the observation area had changed developmental stages. Each growth stage of cotton was recorded following descriptions by Liu et al. (2001). During the study period, cotton cultivars were changed eight times; they were ‘611-Bo’ in 1981, ‘XinLu 1’ from 1982 to 1997, ‘XinLu 7’ in 1998, ‘XinLu 8’ from 1999 to 2001, ‘XinLu 12’ in 2002, ‘XinLu 13’ from 2003 to 2005, ‘Zhongmian 42’ from 2006 to 2007, and ‘XinLu 36’ from
Table 1 Changes of cotton phenologies at Wulanwusu station in oasis of arid regions in northwest China, 1981-2010 Phenology
Change of date (day/year)
Sowing seed Seeding emergence Three-leaf Five-leaf Budding Anthesis Full bloom
−0.814** −0.873** −0.825** −0.776** −0.754** −0.525** −0.486**
Cleft boll Boll-opening Boll-opening filling Stop-growing
−0.179 −0.095 −0.268 −0.072
* and ** represent linear regression significant at P
ORIGINAL PAPER
Effects of climate change on phenological trends and seed cotton yields in oasis of arid regions Jian Huang & Feng Ji
Received: 4 April 2014 / Revised: 7 September 2014 / Accepted: 9 September 2014 # ISB 2014
Abstract Understanding the effects of climatic change on phenological phases of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in oasis of arid regions may help optimize management schemes to increase productivity. This study assessed the impacts of climatic changes on the phenological phases and productivity of spring cotton. The results showed that climatic warming led the dates of sowing seed, seeding emergence, three-leaf, fiveleaf, budding, anthesis, full bloom, cleft boll, boll-opening, boll-opening filling, and stop-growing become earlier by 24.42, 26.19, 24.75, 23.28, 22.62, 15.75, 14.58, 5.37, 2.85, 8.04, and 2.16 days during the period of 1981–2010, respectively. The growth period lengths from sowing seed to seeding emergence and from boll-opening to boll-opening filling were shortened by 1.76 and 5.19 days, respectively. The other growth period lengths were prolonged by 2–9.71 days. The whole growth period length was prolonged by 22.26 days. The stop-growing date was delayed by 2.49–3.46 days for every 1 °C rise in minimum, maximum, and mean temperatures; however, other development dates emerged earlier by 2.17–4.76 days. Rising temperatures during the stage from seeding emergence to three-leaf reduced seed cotton yields. However, rising temperatures increased seed cotton yields in the two stages from anthesis to cleft boll and from bollopening filling to the stop-growing. Increasing accumulated temperatures (AT) had different impacts on different development stages. During the vegetative phase, rising AT led to reduced seed cotton yields, but rising AT during reproductive stage increased seed cotton yields. In conclusion, climatic J. Huang (*) Institute of Desert and Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Urumqi 830002, China e-mail: [email protected] F. Ji Agrometeorological Experimental Station of Wulanwusu, Shihezi 832199, China
warming helpfully obtained more seed cotton yields in oasis of arid regions in northwest China. Changing the sowing date is another way to enhance yields for climate change in the future. Keywords Climate change . Oasis . Phenological phases . Seed cotton yields . Temperature
Introduction Phenology refers to the periodic appearance of life-cycle events and is very important for plant survival and reproduction. Climate change has significant impacts on phenological seasonality in many ecological regions of the world, and it shows the characteristic of prolonging growth period length and advancing phenology (Mearns et al. 1997; Bradley et al. 1999; Menzel and Fabian 1999; Beaubien and Freeland 2000; Menzel 2000; Schwartz and Chen 2002; Fahad 2002; Lu et al. 2006). In mid- and high latitudes, plant development is characterized by a rest period in winter and by an active growing period in spring and summer (Chmielewski et al. 2004). Therefore, the impacts of climate warming on plant phenologies are considered to be of major importance in the northern hemisphere where the growing season length closely depends on temperature (Zhang et al. 2004; Chen et al. 2005; Linderholm 2006). In northern China, increases of air temperatures have resulted in the expansion of winter wheat production to some high-latitude areas where the over-winter survival of winter wheat crops is a challenge in the past. In southern China, increases of air temperatures have shortened the growth periods of some field crops from seeding to maturity, resulting in decreased biomass accumulation and lowered yields (Gao et al. 1995). Climate change has different effects on thermophilic and coolphilic crops. Rising air temperatures may be attributable
Int J Biometeorol
to the change in daily maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures; therefore, it causes the change of phenologies. However, some reports indicate that daily minimum temperatures are rising faster than daily maximum temperatures during recent decades (Menzel et al. 2001). Phenological phases of crops may respond to the changes of both minimum and maximum temperatures, but Alward et al. (1999) observed that rangeland plants responded to the minimum temperatures more sensitively than to the maximum temperatures. Rising mean temperatures can shorten the development stage of coolphilic crops and affect crop yields because shortening of plant growing season length leads to absorption of little radiation and reduction of biomass and yield (Chmielewski et al. 2004). In Australia and Mexico, increase in wheat yield is largely attributed to climate warming (Nicholls 1997; Lobell et al. 2005), whereas in the USA it suggests that it causes a combined loss amounting to $5 billion annually for its negative effects on wheat, maize, and barley production (Lobell and Field 2007). Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a major cash crop in China, with a total production area of about 5.75 million hectares in 2012. There are three major cotton-producing regions: (1) Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), (2) the Yangtze River Basin, and (3) the Yellow River Basin (Hsu and Gale 2001). Climatic conditions in these regions are different. The XUAR is in the northwest China. Summers there are short, hot, and arid, and major production constraints are low night temperatures in spring and autumn. Due to the short growing season, as defined by the occurrence of night frosts, the region is only suitable for early and mid-early maturing varieties, and plastic film mulching is used after sowing to increase soil temperatures and accelerate the growth and development of the seeding. All cotton in XUAR is irrigated (Zhang et al. 2008). Arid area in China accounts for 29.3 % of the total land area (Qian and Yu 2006), and oasis is proper scene in arid regions. Oasis is distributed in every continent and mainly in Asia and Africa. Oasis in China is mainly distributed in the XUAR (the Tarim Basin, the Junggar Basin, the Turpan–Hami Basin, and the Yili Valley), the Gansu Corridor of Gansu province, the Inner Mongolia (the Houtao Plain, the Alashan Plateau, and the west of Erdos Plateau), the south of Yinchuan plain in Ningxia province, and the Qaidam Basin in Qinhai province (Qian and Yu 2006). Oasis area in XUAR amounts to 148,400 km2, which accounts for about 9.2 % of the total area of XUAR (Wen et al. 2003), but over 95 % of the population and 90 % of social wealth in XUAR are assembled in oasis. Cotton is the main crop in oasis, so it has great significance to clear the impacts of climate change on the cotton growth for the sustainable development of oasis economy. The growth of cotton covers the following stages: sowing seed, seeding emergence, three-leaf, five-leaf, budding,
anthesis, full bloom, cleft boll, boll-opening, boll-opening filling, and stop-growing. Temperature is a key factor for the whole growth period of cotton because it needs temperatures of 25–35 °C and covers over 150 days (CIRAD 2006) or at last 1,450 days (Lagandre 2005). Decreasing every 1 °C in mean temperature will greatly delay maturity during the whole growth season (Roussopoulos et al. 1998), and higher temperatures will destroy cotton plant growth (David 1971) and inhibit seed germination (Arndt 1945). These will affect the phenologies and seed cotton yields. But the previous studies mainly focus on the relationships of several development stages and seed cotton yields (Wang et al. 2008; Sawan 2012) or merely analyze relationships between phenologies and accumulated temperatures (AT) of cotton and have not discussed the effects of phenologies and AT on seed cotton yields (Huang and Wang 1999; Lu et al. 2003). Furthermore, temperatures and AT needed in each development stage are different (Huang and Wang 1999; Lu et al. 2003). However, there is little information available regarding the effect of rising temperatures on the changes of each phenological phase of cotton in oasis of arid region. Meanwhile, it is not known whether these factors can affect seed cotton yields in oasis of arid regions, and there are few reports about it at present. It is very important for developing prediction models to understand the association between climatic changes and cotton phenological changes. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of climate changes on each phenological phase, every growth stage, and seed cotton yields during the period from 1981 to 2010 at the cotton fields of the agrometeorological experimental station of Wulanwusu in northwest China.
Materials and methods Study site The agrometeorological experimental station of Wulanwusu (85°49′E, 44°17′N and 468.2 m above sea level) is located in the north oasis of arid regions in XUAR, in northwest China. The station has been managed under the administration of National Meteorological Networks of Central China Meteorological Agency. The soil type is grey desert soil and soil texture is clay-loam soil with organic matter at 15.97 g/kg and total nitrogen at 0.627 g/kg (Pan et al. 2009). The groundwater table is from 8 to 20 m. The long-term (1964– 2010) mean annual precipitation is 220 mm, and the mean annual temperature is 7.7 °C. Frost-free period is about 170 days. According to the agricultural climate division, the region is suitable for planting cotton in the Junggar Basin. Spring cotton is the primary field crop in this region. All agricultural activity under this environment relies on irrigation.
Int J Biometeorol
Weather and crop data Weather parameters including daily maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures, precipitation, and AT (≥10 and ≥0 °C) have been recorded since 1964. The data of all weather parameters were collected by following the “China Agricultural Meteorological Observation Guidelines” (Xu and She 1980) established by Central China Meteorological Agency. In this study, only weather data during the period of 1981–2010 were used because the detailed phenological phases of spring cotton were recorded starting from 1981 by following the same criteria established in the guidelines. Cotton was grown in an area of 2 ha in the station and about 100 m away from buildings, highways, or rivers to avoid any potential microclimatic influence. Cotton was irrigated four to six times during a single growing season with an amount of 345–570 mm/ha water. The whole cotton area was divided into four plots as four replicates. The phenological phases of cotton were observed on 10 individual plants in an area of 2 m2 within each plot. The observation area was marked and all subsequent observations and measurements were made on the plants in the marked area. Cotton plants were observed every another day during the entire growing season each year and the calendar dates were recorded when 50 % of the plants in the observation area had changed developmental stages. Each growth stage of cotton was recorded following descriptions by Liu et al. (2001). During the study period, cotton cultivars were changed eight times; they were ‘611-Bo’ in 1981, ‘XinLu 1’ from 1982 to 1997, ‘XinLu 7’ in 1998, ‘XinLu 8’ from 1999 to 2001, ‘XinLu 12’ in 2002, ‘XinLu 13’ from 2003 to 2005, ‘Zhongmian 42’ from 2006 to 2007, and ‘XinLu 36’ from
Table 1 Changes of cotton phenologies at Wulanwusu station in oasis of arid regions in northwest China, 1981-2010 Phenology
Change of date (day/year)
Sowing seed Seeding emergence Three-leaf Five-leaf Budding Anthesis Full bloom
−0.814** −0.873** −0.825** −0.776** −0.754** −0.525** −0.486**
Cleft boll Boll-opening Boll-opening filling Stop-growing
−0.179 −0.095 −0.268 −0.072
* and ** represent linear regression significant at P
