Yield comparison of simulated rainfed wheat and barley across Middle-East

Rémy Schoppach, Afshin Soltani, Thomas R. Sinclair, Walid Sadok

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Rain-fed wheat and barley are key crops in the Middle-East. A slight improvement in the effective use of water and in grain yield could greatly improve lives of subsistence farmers. This study aimed to evaluate the relative merits of wheat and barley in this region by simulating yields across 404 uniformly spread locations across 30 growing seasons. The results emphasized the primary importance of sowing date in each location. In comparison to wheat, barley generally was capable of rapid progress through its development stages allowing it to avoid deleterious late-season droughts and to have greater yields in low rainfall regions. A large part of Middle-East appeared unsuited for rain-fed production of these two grain species if seasonal yield variability is a concern.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)101-108
Number of pages8
JournalAgricultural Systems
Volume153
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS, contract #1.5108.12) and the FSR fund of the Université catholique de Louvain. Rémy Schoppach is a FRIA (contract #1.E038.13) fellow, Belgium. Walid Sadok was supported by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES), project MIN-13-095.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Africa
  • Barley
  • Drought
  • Simulation
  • Wheat
  • Yield

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