Effect of Climate Change on potato Production and assessment adaptation strategies in Fereydounshahr

In order to study was to evaluate future climate Fereydunshahr of Isfahan for the next hundred years and its effect on potato production in Fereydunshahr. To forecast future climate conditions in Fereydunshahr were collected daily climate data including maximum and minimum temperature, rainfall and sunshine hours in this region during the period 1982 to 2012. In this study was used to simulate climatic data LARS-WG model and for the simulation of tuber yield of potato cultivars SUBSTOR-Potato model. For this purpose, we employed two types of General Circulation Models ((United Kingdom Met. Office Hadley Center: HadCM3) and (Institute Pierre Simon Laplace: IPCM4)) and three scenarios (A1B, A2 and B1) for three time period as 2015 to 2045, 2046 to 2075 and 2075 to 2105 AD. The SUBSTOR-Potato model was used for simulating the baseline and future yield and growth characteristics of potato. This is one of sixteen models embedded within the DSSAT program. The precision of LARS-WG model was evaluated by root mean-squared error (RMSE) test. In order to validate growth model, a split plot experiment based on complete random block design (CRBD) in three replications for two years (2012-2013 and 2014-2015) was conducted. The treatments included seeding date as main factor in three levels (5, 15 and 30 May) and three potato cultivars (Arinda, Santeh and Agria as early, medium and late maturity variety, respectively) as subplot including. Then, using of LARS-WG model was estimated the climatic data for a sample of Fereydunshahr in three periods 2015 to 2045, 2046 to 2075 and 2076 to 2105 AD, using two general circulation models (HadCM3 and IPCM4) under three scenarios standard A2, B1 and A1B. The results showed that the model LARS-WG had acceptable potential (RMSE <30) in the simulated climate data Fereydunshahr. Data validation results of LARS-WG showed that LARS-WG is more accurately simulate the maximum temperature in comparison whit minimum temperature and rainfall. Maximum and minimum temperature increased in all general circulation models and scenarios assessed in relation to the current situation. In general, the results showed that in the future will see less rainfall and higher temperatures than the current situation for Fereydunshahr and therefore will see reduce the yield of potato in Fereydunshahr. As we observed in HadCM3 and IPCM4 models and three scenarios (A1B, A2 and B1) reduction in potato yield respectively in 2090 compared with 2030. It seems that management of planting dates can be regarded as appropriate approach to reduce adverse effects of climate change on tuber yield of potato. Evaluation of adaption ways to future climate condition clarified that either early or late seeding date of tolerant cultivars such as Arinda might be considered as a solution to face changing climate since under these seeding dates flowering stage won't occur under high temperatures. It seems that management of planting dates can be regarded as appropriate approach to reduce adverse effects of climate change on tuber yield of potato.