Wheat-Based Cropping System Strategies for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change.

Agricultural strategies are needed that meet short- and long-term goals of sustainability under climate change. Proposed mitigation and adaptation strategies for dryland and irrigated wheat-based systems are crop intensification and diversification, conservation tillage, direct seeding, decision support and technology-based improvements in N, water and energy use efficiency, and integration of recyclable C and N soil amendments. As part of the USDA NIFA-funded project “Regional Approaches to Climate Change for Pacific Northwest Agriculture”, a network of new and existing experiment station and on-farm sites has been identified that represent the spectrum of wheat-based cropping systems across large gradients in precipitation, temperature and soils in four predominant agroecological zones of the Pacific Northwest. At each location, alternative management strategies are being evaluated relative to traditional farming practices by monitoring and measuring soil, crop, and atmospheric C, N, and water balances of small plot and field scale studies. Historical data and research findings, coupled with new data from this project will inform crop and socioeconomic models to assess potential impacts of policy and management adoption on climate change mitigation and adaptation.