Long-term changes in duration of vegetation season of winter wheat under climate warming in north Lithuania

Abstract

The rebirth of phenology is a specific feature of the last decades and recently phenological observations usually are treated as a source of the most sensitive data of plant response to climate change. The objective of this study is to examine climate warming related the long term (1961–2015) changes in duration of both – initial (pre-winter) and main (post-winter ) winter wheat vegetation seasons, and to present projections of future phenological changes. The data of long-term agricultural investigations (1961-2015) which include phenological observations and were performed in Joniškėlis Experimental Station of the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry were used for this study. The latest generation of climate change scenarios which are based on the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) approach is used to project annual and monthly temperature for the near (2011–2040), middle (2041–2070) and far (2071–2100) future. This study covers two (optimistic and pessimistic) scenarios for future concentrations of greenhouse gases and future climate conditions simulated by five Global Circulation Models (GCM). Phenological projection is based on thermal accumulation approach, “leave one out” is applied for the cross validation of phenological model