Tendency for change of agroclimatic conditions for formation of millet yield by 2050 within the Steppe zone of Ukraine

Abstract

The current trend of climate change requires a significant revision of the species and breed composition of agricultural crops. Preference should be given to drought-resistant crops such as millet, especially in the Steppe zone of Ukraine. Thus studies of agro-climatic conditions for formation of millet yields in the coming years are of great importance. The article covers the assessment of changes in agro-climatic resources for the northern and Southern Steppe zones of Ukraine according to RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios during three ten-year periods: 2021-2030, 2031-2040 and 2041-2050 as compared with the basic period of 1986-2005. The research applies the basic model for assessment of agro-climatic resources of formation of agricultural crops productivity developed by A. M. Polevoy. The model uses meteorological and agrometeorological data of air temperature and humidity, precipitation, solar radiation, water-physical properties and soil moisture obtained through standard meteorological and agrometeorological observations. The model of crops production process allowed establishing the agro-climatic resources during millet vegetation season and indicators of photosynthetic productivity, as well as determining the regularities for formation of different agri-environmental categories of crop yield and crop yield fluctuations under climate change within the thirty-year period from 2021 to 2050. The research evaluates the change of aforementioned indicators both in the context of individual periods and in the context of the Northern and Southern Steppe zones. It was found that the largest change in agro-climatic resources and millet productivity is observed in the Southern Steppe zone. For both the Southern and Northern Steppe zones the largest difference of such indicators is observed under the RCP8.5 climate change scenario. It was also found that the largest change of the indicators is observed within the period from 2031 to 2040. However, within the next decade, the values of all indicators will be close to the data observed during the basic period (1986-2005). According to the results of calculations for the period from 2021 to 2050 under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios the expected scenario yields will be higher than those of the basic period.

Keywords

• climate change
• millet
• agro-climatic resources
• indicators of photosynthetic productivity
• agri-environmental categories of crops
• steppe zone of ukraine