Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014

The study is focused on drought stress that is detrimental to yield formation of field-grown vegetables in the lowland regions of the Czech Republic. Extensive vegetable yield losses are attributed to drought, often in combination with heat or other stresses. The objective of this research was to inv...

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Main Authors: V. Potopová, P. Štěpánek, A. Farda, L. Türkott, P. Zahradníček, J. Soukup
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidad de La Rioja 2016-06-01
Series:Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/cig/article/view/2924
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author V. Potopová
P. Štěpánek
A. Farda
L. Türkott
P. Zahradníček
J. Soukup
author_facet V. Potopová
P. Štěpánek
A. Farda
L. Türkott
P. Zahradníček
J. Soukup
author_sort V. Potopová
collection DOAJ
description The study is focused on drought stress that is detrimental to yield formation of field-grown vegetables in the lowland regions of the Czech Republic. Extensive vegetable yield losses are attributed to drought, often in combination with heat or other stresses. The objective of this research was to investigate, under field conditions, the effect of drought stress quantified by the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) on yield variability of key vegetable crops growing in the Elbe River lowland, representing central European agriculture conditions. Additionally, we also tried to determine the period of crop with the highest sensitivity to drought (PCSD) of vegetable crops over the Elbe River lowland. Historical climate datasets for a regular gridded network with a high horizontal resolution of 10 km (CZGRIDS) and 305 climatological stations from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute were applied. The SPEI at 1-, 3-, and 6-month lags was calculated for the period 1961-2014 based on precipitation and input dataset for the reference evapotranspiration (ETr) by the Penman-Monteith (PM) method. Moreover, the difference between daily precipitation and crop evapotranspiration (ETc) has been used to calculate the mean crop water balance (D) per main growth stages, as an indicator of plant stress. This improvement increased the applicability of the SPEI in agriculture drought impact on rainfed and/or irrigated field crops grown under various agronomic management systems. To understand how the SPEI, over the period 1989-2014, controlled the yield variation, we calculated the percentage of yield losses and gains for each crop. When the value of SPEI at 3-month lag–as a measure of the balance between the water availability and the atmospheric water demand–for PCSD was between -1.49 and 0.99, the yield moderately increased for Fruiting vegetables (e.g. tomatoes, cucumber). Conversely, when the SPEI-3 in the key development stage dropped below -3.0, the yield losses were about -30% and a negative influence is apparent from threshold of the SPEI≤-1.5. The effect of the SPEI on yield formation of vegetable cultivars grown under filed conditions was achieved up to 62% in the study region.
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spelling doaj.art-9553e30bc99846589bebfeda248891322022-12-22T00:00:57ZengUniversidad de La RiojaCuadernos de Investigación Geográfica0211-68201697-95402016-06-0142112714310.18172/cig.29242750Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014V. Potopová0P. Štěpánek1A. Farda2L. Türkott3P. Zahradníček4J. Soukup5Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Department of Agroecology and Biometeorology, Prague, Kamýcká 129 Praha 6 Suchdol 165 21,Czech RepublicGlobal Change Research Centre ASCR, Brno, Czech Republic Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Brno, Czech RepublicGlobal Change Research Centre ASCR, Brno, Czech RepublicCzech University of Life Sciences PragueGlobal Change Research Centre ASCR, Brno, Czech Republic Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Brno, Czech RepublicCzech University of Life Sciences PragueThe study is focused on drought stress that is detrimental to yield formation of field-grown vegetables in the lowland regions of the Czech Republic. Extensive vegetable yield losses are attributed to drought, often in combination with heat or other stresses. The objective of this research was to investigate, under field conditions, the effect of drought stress quantified by the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) on yield variability of key vegetable crops growing in the Elbe River lowland, representing central European agriculture conditions. Additionally, we also tried to determine the period of crop with the highest sensitivity to drought (PCSD) of vegetable crops over the Elbe River lowland. Historical climate datasets for a regular gridded network with a high horizontal resolution of 10 km (CZGRIDS) and 305 climatological stations from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute were applied. The SPEI at 1-, 3-, and 6-month lags was calculated for the period 1961-2014 based on precipitation and input dataset for the reference evapotranspiration (ETr) by the Penman-Monteith (PM) method. Moreover, the difference between daily precipitation and crop evapotranspiration (ETc) has been used to calculate the mean crop water balance (D) per main growth stages, as an indicator of plant stress. This improvement increased the applicability of the SPEI in agriculture drought impact on rainfed and/or irrigated field crops grown under various agronomic management systems. To understand how the SPEI, over the period 1989-2014, controlled the yield variation, we calculated the percentage of yield losses and gains for each crop. When the value of SPEI at 3-month lag–as a measure of the balance between the water availability and the atmospheric water demand–for PCSD was between -1.49 and 0.99, the yield moderately increased for Fruiting vegetables (e.g. tomatoes, cucumber). Conversely, when the SPEI-3 in the key development stage dropped below -3.0, the yield losses were about -30% and a negative influence is apparent from threshold of the SPEI≤-1.5. The effect of the SPEI on yield formation of vegetable cultivars grown under filed conditions was achieved up to 62% in the study region.https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/cig/article/view/2924standardized precipitation evapotranspiration indexdrought stressreference evapotranspirationcrop evapotranspirationcrop coefficientczech republic
spellingShingle V. Potopová
P. Štěpánek
A. Farda
L. Türkott
P. Zahradníček
J. Soukup
Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014
Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica
standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index
drought stress
reference evapotranspiration
crop evapotranspiration
crop coefficient
czech republic
title Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014
title_full Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014
title_fullStr Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014
title_full_unstemmed Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014
title_short Drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the Elbe River lowland between 1961 and 2014
title_sort drought stress impact on vegetable crop yields in the elbe river lowland between 1961 and 2014
topic standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index
drought stress
reference evapotranspiration
crop evapotranspiration
crop coefficient
czech republic
url https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/cig/article/view/2924
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AT pstepanek droughtstressimpactonvegetablecropyieldsintheelberiverlowlandbetween1961and2014
AT afarda droughtstressimpactonvegetablecropyieldsintheelberiverlowlandbetween1961and2014
AT lturkott droughtstressimpactonvegetablecropyieldsintheelberiverlowlandbetween1961and2014
AT pzahradnicek droughtstressimpactonvegetablecropyieldsintheelberiverlowlandbetween1961and2014
AT jsoukup droughtstressimpactonvegetablecropyieldsintheelberiverlowlandbetween1961and2014