Evidence for increasing global wheat yield potential

• Published in: Environmental research letters Vol. 17; no. 12; pp. 124045 - 124057
• Main Authors: Guarin, Jose Rafael, Martre, Pierre, Ewert, Frank, Webber, Heidi, Dueri, Sibylle, Calderini, Daniel, Reynolds, Matthew, Molero, Gemma, Miralles, Daniel, Garcia, Guillermo, Slafer, Gustavo, Giunta, Francesco, Pequeno, Diego N L, Stella, Tommaso, Ahmed, Mukhtar, Alderman, Phillip D, Basso, Bruno, Berger, Andres G, Bindi, Marco, Bracho-Mujica, Gennady, Cammarano, Davide, Chen, Yi, Dumont, Benjamin, Rezaei, Ehsan Eyshi, Fereres, Elias, Ferrise, Roberto, Gaiser, Thomas, Gao, Yujing, Garcia-Vila, Margarita, Gayler, Sebastian, Hochman, Zvi, Hoogenboom, Gerrit, Hunt, Leslie A, Kersebaum, Kurt C, Nendel, Claas, Olesen, Jørgen E, Palosuo, Taru, Priesack, Eckart, Pullens, Johannes W M, Rodríguez, Alfredo, Rötter, Reimund P, Ramos, Margarita Ruiz, Semenov, Mikhail A, Senapati, Nimai, Siebert, Stefan, Srivastava, Amit Kumar, Stöckle, Claudio, Supit, Iwan, Tao, Fulu, Thorburn, Peter, Wang, Enli, Weber, Tobias Karl David, Xiao, Liujun, Zhang, Zhao, Zhao, Chuang, Zhao, Jin, Zhao, Zhigan, Zhu, Yan, Asseng, Senthold
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.12.2022; Institute of Physics
• Subjects: Agricultural Science; Agriculture & agronomie; Agriculture & agronomy; Canopies; Cereal crops; Climate change; crop model ensemble; Crop modeling; Crop production; Crop yield; Environmental impact; Environmental Science (all); Environmental Sciences; Field tests; General Environmental Science; Global food security; Global food security supplementary material for this article be available online; global food security Supplementary material for this article is available online; Grain; Jordbruksvetenskap; Life Sciences; Miljövetenskap; Model ensembles; Photosynthesis; Plant breeding; Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health; radiation use efficiency; Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment; Sciences du vivant; Solar radiation; Vegetal Biology; Wheat; wheat potential yield; Wheat production; yield increase; Yield potential; wheat potential yield; crop model ensemble; radiation use efficiency; yield increase; global food security
• ISSN: 1748-9326; 1748-9326
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aca77c

Wheat is the most widely grown food crop, with 761 Mt produced globally in 2020. To meet the expected grain demand by mid-century, wheat breeding strategies must continue to improve upon yield-advancing physiological traits, regardless of climate change impacts. Here, the best performing doubled haploid (DH) crosses with an increased canopy photosynthesis from wheat field experiments in the literature were extrapolated to the global scale with a multi-model ensemble of process-based wheat crop models to estimate global wheat production. The DH field experiments were also used to determine a quantitative relationship between wheat production and solar radiation to estimate genetic yield potential. The multi-model ensemble projected a global annual wheat production of 1050 ± 145 Mt due to the improved canopy photosynthesis, a 37% increase, without expanding cropping area. Achieving this genetic yield potential would meet the lower estimate of the projected grain demand in 2050, albeit with considerable challenges.