Simulating the Potential Impacts of Future Climate Change on Corn and Soybean Crop Health in the Lower Chippewa River Watershed

Abstract

Climate Change has the potential to affect diverse biophysical and sociocultural attributes of society. As a result, it becomes prudent to probe into the potential ramifications of future climate change on the health of key crops. Using two future climate scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models, the study analyzed the potential impacts of future climate change on corn and soybean health. Crop health monitoring was implemented with the WinEPIC crop simulation growth model. Results demonstrated that both corn and soybean biomass, grain yield, and harvest index overall are predicted to decrease compared to 2010 partly as a consequence of the predicted increase in the number of water stress days for both crops. Future climate scenario with higher greenhouse gas emission predicted greater corn and soybean biomass and grain yields respectively, compared to lower greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Although this suggests that increase in CO2 can lengthen the growing season in the study area and cushion the potential reduction of productivity for these crops, crop productivity is still predicted to fall irrespective of the scenario examined.