Modelling the Growth and Grain Yield Response of Wheat Crops to Climate Change in Victoria, Australia.

Crop simulation models provide the most robust and objective methods available to extrapolate likely crop response to climate change, over different landscapes and time periods than measurements made at various FACE facilities throughout the world.  This landscape scale analyses allows the exploration of the likely impacts and adaptation strategies to climate change that is available to farmers and crop scientists.  Such models include APSIM, CAT, CROPSYST, DSSAT, OLEARY & CONNOR and SIRIUS models that include functions to account for the effects of elevated CO₂ and temperature that are expected to occur over the coming decades.  These models also account for shortages of water and nitrogen supplies.  We explore how well some of these models have performed against the Horsham FACE experimental data from 2007 to 2009.  Our paper also shows how we have applied the CAT model to inform policy on likely changes to wheat crop production at the landscape scale in Victoria.  We discuss the need for a universal phenology model for such analyses and conclude how crop phenology might need to be altered to maximise yield in various production zones in Victoria.