Impacts of climate change on wheat anthesis and fusarium ear blight in the UK

Abstract

Climate change will affect both growth of agricultural crops and diseases that attack them but there has been little work to study how its impacts on crop growth influence impacts on disease epidemics. This paper investigates how impacts of climate change on wheat anthesis date will influence impacts on fusarium ear blight in UK mainland arable areas. A wheat growth model was used for projections of anthesis dates, and a weather-based model was developed for use in projections of incidence of fusarium ear blight in the UK. Daily weather data, generated for 14 sites in arable areas of the UK for a baseline scenario and for high and low CO2 emissions in the 2020s and 2050s, were used to project wheat anthesis dates and fusarium ear blight incidence for each site for each climate change scenario. Incidence of fusarium ear blight was related to rainfall during anthesis and temperature during the preceding 6 weeks. It was projected that, with climate change, wheat anthesis dates will be earlier and fusarium ear blight epidemics will be more severe, especially in southern England, by the 2050s. These projections, made by combining crop and disease models for different climate change scenarios, suggest that improved control of fusarium ear blight should be a high priority in industry and government strategies for adaptation to climate change to ensure food security. Response to Reviewers: Dear MikeThank you for returning our paper. Please thank the associate editor Dr Peter Burt and the referee for their helpful comments. My colleagues and I have now revised the paper in response to those comments. WE are attaching the revised paper. With best wishes BruceComments for the Author: This is an interesting study which, I think, should be published. It is recognised that modelling/forecasting studies of this type are complex and it is almost impossible to cover every eventuality and component, but I believe the authors have addressed most issues as comprehensively and realistically as they can.I think there are a few issues of editing/clarification. Page 2, lines 45-50. I know what you mean, but the sentence is slightly confusing. Crop yields may also be affected by climate change (the text currently implies that yields are only affected by disease changes). A little editing would improve the context. This sentence has been changed to improve clarity.Page2/3 bottom/top. Although CO2 increases may increase crop yields to a point, there will be a level where such increases start at affect plant physiology adversely (i.e. not all CO2 increase will be good!). I think some acknowledgement of this is needed, as the text reads it implies that (theoretically infinite) increases of CO2 will be to the good. This sentence has been changed to improve clarity.Is the impact of climate change on winter wheat (page 3, line 24) the primary effect on UK arable crops (i.e. all other crops will be affected to a lesser degree) or a general effect (with all crops being effected equally). The text currently implies the former, but some...

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