Effects of climate change and cultivar on summer maize phenology

To identify countermeasures to the effects of climate warming on crop production, we mustunderstand the changes in crop phenology and the relationships between phenology and climatechange and cultivar. We used summer maize phenological and climate data in the North ChinaPlain, collected from 1981 to 2010. This study analyzed the spatiotemporal trends inphenological data and lengths of different growing phases, mean temperatures and rainfall.The analyses showed that sowing, jointing and anthesis occurred relatively early at 13 (48.1%),11 (40.7%) and 13 (48.1%) stations, respectively. Maturity dates were delayed significantly at10 (37.0%) stations. The lengths of the vegetative growing phases, vegetative and reproductivegrowing phase at most stations showed a negative trend. The lengths of the reproductivegrowing phase increased at 25 (92.6%) stations, respectively. Furthermore, at most stations, thecorrelations between Tmeans and lengths of the various growing phases were negative, whereasthe correlations between rainfall and lengths of various growing phases were positive.Furthermore, a field experiment, including four summer maize cultivars which were introducedduring the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s and 2000s, was carried out during 2012 to 2014. The analysesshowed that the durations of the various growing phases increased significantly. These resultsindicated that climate warming accelerates summer maize growth and shortens the growingperiods of maize growth, whereas cultivars shift might prolong the maize growing season.Therefore, the maize cultivars with more longer whole growing period should be adopt in theNorth China Plain under the trend of global warming and the adaptation strategy of maizeproduction under climate change should include crop phenology in response to climate change.The findings presented here could guide the development of options to adapt maize productionto climate change in the North China Plain and other areas with similar ecologies.