Climate data integration into wheat performance evaluation reveals large inter-varietal responses

Abstract There is an urgent need to adapt crop breeding strategies to boost resilience in the face of a growing food demand and a changing climate. Achieving this requires an understanding of how weather and climate variability impacts crop growth and development. Using the United Kingdom (UK) as an example, we evaluate changes in the UK agroclimate and analyse how these have influenced domestic wheat production. Here we quantify spatial and temporal variability and changes in weather and climate across growing seasons over the last four decades (1981–2020). Drawing on variety trial data, we then use statistical modelling to explore the interaction between genotype and agroclimate variation. We show that changes in the UK agroclimate present both risks, and opportunities for wheat growers, depending on location. From 1981–2020, in Wales, the West Midlands, large parts of the North West, and Northern Ireland, there was an overall increase in frost risk in early spring of 0.15 additional frost days per year, whilst in the east early frost risk decreased by up to 0.29 d per year. Meanwhile, over the period 1987–2020, surface incoming shortwave radiation during grainfill increased in the east by up to 13% but decreased in Western areas by up to 15%. We show significant inter-varietal differences in yield responses to growing degree days, heavy rainfall, and the occurrence of late frost. This highlights the importance of evaluating variety-climate interactions in variety trial analyses, and in climate-optimised selection of crops and varieties by growers. This work provides guidance for future research on how climate change is affecting the UK agroclimate and resulting impacts on winter cereal production.