Strategies to cope with warming and reduced rainfall in green gram for northern transition zone of Karnataka, India

Abstract

South West monsoon has become more erratic and unpredictable in the northern Transition Zone of Karnataka and in the coming decades this will continue further with warming. To cope with change in climate, agronomic adaptation strategies (optimum sowing window and application of irrigation at critical stages) are required to maintain higher yields of greengram. As a result, the DSSAT model was used to investigate the influence of climate change on greengram. The study included a combination of two temperature (+1 and +2 °C) and two reduced rainfall (˗10 and ˗20 %) scenarios in comparison with the baseline scenario (i.e., current climate). These scenarios were built for 32 years using historical weather data from 1985-2016. With regard to adaptation strategies, six dates of sowing; starting from June 1^st week to July 2^nd week at a weekly interval and four irrigation treatments each of 60 mm; one at pre-flowering stage, one at pod formation stage, one each at pre-flowering and pod formation stages, and no irrigation (rainfed) were included. Between sowing dates, the model's simulation of average grain yield across 32 years revealed that, 3^rd (513 kg ha^-1) and 4^th (508 kg ha^-1) week of June were found to be optimum under future climate. Irrigation at any of the critical stages increased the yield, but largest positive yield response was replicated with two irrigations: one at pre-flowering and the other during the pod formation stage (556 kg/ha). This study clearly showed that under future climates of 1 to 2 ℃ warming with reduced rainfall scenarios (-10 % & -20 %), sowing on 3^rd and 4^th week of June is best one, providing two irrigations (60 mm each) one at pre-flowering and the other at pod formation stage would more than compensate the loss in yield projected under changing climates in coming decades.