Zhe Zhang, Yanping Li, Phillip Harder, Warren Helgason, Fei Chen, Zhenhua Li (2022). Land Surface Modeling of Wheat Growth Dynamics in the Canadian Prairies – Current Representation and Future Climate Change. Proceedings of the GWF Annual Open Science Meeting, May 16-18, 2022.

Representing dynamic crop growth in the terrestrial ecosystem has been one of the major challenges to the development of integrative Earth System Models. Complex hydrological and biogeochemical processes occur in croplands, including plant photosynthesis, transpiration, and biomass accumulation. Addressing these complex processes require collaborative efforts from observation, modeling, and remote sensing communities. In this study, we attempted to represent the dynamic wheat growth in the Canadian Prairies and the U.S. Northern Great Plains, using the NoahMP-Crop model. Three sub-tasks are addressed: (1) single-point simulations were conducted from the field observation in Kenaston, Saskatchewan, to develop crop growth parameters; (2) these parameters are propagated to regional scale, given spatially-varied planting/harvest date and accumulation of growing degree days (GDD). The regional simulation results were evaluated against MODIS LAI product and agricultural survey data from Stats Canada and USDA. (3) a Pseudo Global Warming (PGW) scenario was applied to the model to assess the climate change impacts on wheat growth in this region. Two aspects were studied, as the impacts of extreme heat events on wheat growth and the possibility of adjusting planting date to mitigate extreme heat or drought in late growing seasons under climate change. Although great uncertainties remain, incorporating dynamic crop growth through field observation, remote sensing, and modeling approach opens a new perspective in this research field.

AOSM2022 Agricultural Water Futures First Author: Zhe Zhang, University of Saskatchewan Additional Authors: Yanping Li, University of Saskatchewan; Phillip Harder, University of Saskatchewan; Warren Helgason, University of Saskatchewan; Fei Chen, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Zhenhua Li, University of Saskatchewan