Climate Change Effects on Corn Production and Development of Adaptation Strategies in the Central Great Plains.

As climate change becomes inevitable, agricultural community is struggling to understand its effects on crop production and to find solutions to adapt to such change. In this study, the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) is calibrated with four years of corn data from central Colorado under limited irrigation condition and then used to simulate climate change effects on corn production with current management practices and cultivars. The model is further used to simulate corn production with heat resistance and longer growing season cultivars from the south. Results show that projected climate change decreases corn yield by 20% and water use efficiency by 7% in year 2080. A corn variety from the south, that we plan to study, should reverse the decline in yield as it is more heat tolerate and has a longer growing season.  Advancing planting date has limited effect on corn production under projected climate change condition.