Evaluation of the influence of climate change on the productivity of millet in the central part of Ukraine

Abstract

Climate change is a change of climatic conditions in the global atmosphere and on the Earth in general (or within its individual zones or territories) caused directly or indirectly due by the human activity on the planet, which are overlaid on the natural climatic variations (fluctuations) and ob-served during comparable periods of time. Both the climate of Ukraine and the global climate are changing, but warming within our terri-tory progresses even faster than in other regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Ukraine in general and southern regions in particular are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change – droughts, extremely high temperatures, inefficient precipitation, reduced irrigated area cause of precipitation amount and regime, severer and more long-lasting droughts, reduced water availability. The majority of arable land in Ukraine are located in zones of unstable and insufficient humidity, it is quite possible that for plant growing, especially for growing winter crops and early spring crops, climate change will rather have a positive effect than negative one. Among the main types of cereals millet is the most common one. It is valuable for its groats, which is known by its high eating quality. Millet as a fast-growing crop having a certain agrotechnical importance: it is used as a backup crop for re-sowing dead winter crops and is suitable for stubble and post-harvest sowing, it also can be used as a cover culture for perennial grass. Millet is one of the most drought-resistant and heat-resistant crops. It is able to withstand heat injuries which is very important in arid areas and during dry years, when other grain crops have reduced yield. Millet suffers less from pests and diseases than other crops. The task was to evaluate the agro-climatic conditions of millet crops formation in the central part of Ukraine under conditions of climate change. The study of the impact of climate change on the formation of millet productivity for different time intervals was performed by comparing the data of the RCP scenario and the average long-term climatic and agro-climatic parameters. The in-fluence of agroclimatic conditions on the dynamics of increase of agroecological yield of different levels is also assessed.

Keywords

• millet, climate change, yield, air temperature, gains, precipitation, moisture supply