Spatially Explicit Regional Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Oklahoma Wheat Production.

Computer simulations are being extensively used to assess and understand uncertainties in crop production in response to future climate conditions. However, existing crop models utilize information on different management and environmental scenarios to predict yield at a specific site. Traditional crop simulation models are usually point-specific and do not capture inherent spatial variability that occurs in nature due to variable soil, weather, and agronomic management. With advances in computation technology, infrastructure and data storage, obtaining high resolution, comprehensive data for crop yield assessment is not very challenging these days due to widely available spatial data from multiple geospatial gateways. We plan to use DSSAT (Decision Support Systems for Agro-technology Transfer) family of crop-growth model to simulate plant development, growth and yield of wheat. Environmental variables such as maximum and minimum air temperature, rainfall, solar radiation, and soil type are needed in the CERES-wheat model for forecasting of wheat growth and yield. The study is aimed to evaluate impacts of potential climate change on wheat production in Oklahoma.