Predicting silage maize yield and quality in Sweden as influenced by climate change and variability

Abstract

In recent decades European silage maize production has extended northwards, into Scandinavia, and the importance of maize in fodder production has increased substantially. For the northward expansion of maize production it is of interest to evaluate both the role of climate change that has occurred already, and scenarios for possible future climate change. The aim of this study was to assess for Swedish climatic conditions, the annual variation in silage maize yield and quality (dry weight and starch contents) of cultivars currently grown in Germany.

The MAISPROQ simulation model currently used in German maize production was applied to evaluate the effects of (i) cultivar differences (four cultivars; four sites; 2003–2009), (ii) intra-regional variation among ten sites representing three regions (two cultivars; 2003–2009), and (iii) climatic variability among two historical periods during 1961–2009 and three future periods during 2011–2100 using A2-emission climate scenarios and the Delta-method (two cultivars; four sites).

Forage quality assessments strongly influenced the assessments of harvest time and thereby the yield. Changes in simulated yield of the tested cultivars were high for the past climate, but relatively small under future climatic conditions due to earlier harvest caused by improved forage quality. By the end of the 21st century an appropriate fodder quality would be achieved every year in the south of Sweden, whereas in the middle of Sweden (60°N) about 30% of the years would not be successful, even for the earliest cultivar. In the east, increased water stress counteracted the positive effect of a prolonged growing season. It was concluded that adaptation of field experiments to model calibration requirements remains to be done, in order to enable extrapolation of observations from Swedish field trials to a changing future climate.