Changing rainfall patterns and their impact on cereal crops in the Szentes district

One of the most significant impacts of climate change on domestic agriculture is an adverse change in rainfall patterns and an increased frequency of droughts. In our study, we analyzed the daily rainfall data at the automatic hydro-meteorological measuring station of the Lower Tisza Water Directorate (ATIVIZIG) in Szentes from 1981 to 2000 and 2001 to 2020. The focus of our study was the change in precipitation patterns caused by climate change and the phenology-dependent water demand and related yield of field cereal crops (wheat, maize). The yields of wheat and maize grown on the two largest arable land areas in the Szentes District and its wider region, the Southern Great Plain, between 2003 and 2020 showed a moderately strong correlation with changes in annual rainfall for the farms studied. This points to a strong dependence on rainfall for yields, also taking into account the risk of rainfall extremes. We found that in the second period under study, the dispersion of both annual and monthly rainfall totals increased strongly but in an insignificant way. The number of days with high rainfall increased by 19.3% and the number of days with extreme rainfall increased by 40.9%. Even larger increases were observed for the highest five-day rainfall totals (62.1%).