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Grasslands play a significant role in livestock fodder production and thus, contribute to food security worldwide while providing numerous additional ecosystem services. However, how agroclimatic conditions and adverse weather events relevant for grasslands will change across the European grassland areas has not been examined to date. Using a single reference setup for soil and management over 476 European sites defined by climate stations, we show the probability of eight selected adverse weather events with the potential to significantly affect grassland productivity under climate change and how these events vary regionally across Europe. Changes in these eight key agroclimatic indicators create markedly specific spatial patterns. We found that by 2050, the exposure of the south and west European grasslands to heat and drought may double in comparison with today and that the area with frequent occurrences of heat and drought will expand northwards. However, across Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries to southern Finland and Sweden, the likelihood of these events is likely to decrease. While changing cultivars and management strategies are unavoidable, shifting grassland production to other regions to reduce the risk may not be possible as the risk of adverse events beyond the key grassland-growing areas increases even further. Moreover, we found marked changes in the overall thermal and water regimes across European regions. The effect of adverse weather events in the future could be different in other regions of the world compared to regions in Europe, emphasizing the importance of conducting similar analyses for other major grassland producing regions. To mitigate the impact of climate change, new ways of maintaining grassland productivity need to be developed. These methods include more efficient selection of species mixtures for specific regions, including increased use of legumes and forbs; incorporation of new genetic resources, including the development of hybrid cultivars, such as Festulolium hybrids; and incorporation of state-of-the-art technologies in breeding programs and new grazing management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Soil moisture dynamics and their temporal trends in the Czech Republic are forced by various drivers. The methodology of applying remotely sensed data with both high temporal and spatial resolutions provides detailed insight and objective quantification of the causes of changes in soil moisture patterns. Our analysis of temporal trends indicates that shifts in drought severity between 1961 and 2012 (especially in the April, May, and June period, which displayed a 50% increase in drought probability between 1961-1980 and 2001-2012) are alarming. We found that increased global radiation and air temperature together with decreased relative humidity (all statistically significant at the 0.05 level) led to increases in the reference evapotranspiration in all months of the growing season; this trend was particularly evident in April, May, and August, when more than 80% of the territory displayed an increased demand for soil water. This finding was shown to be consistent with the measured pan evaporation (1968-2012) that was characterized by increasing trends, particularly during the April-June period. These changes, in combination with the earlier end of snow cover and the earlier start of growing season (up to 20 days in some regions), led to an increased actual evapotranspiration at the start of growing season that tends to deplete the soil moisture earlier, leaving the soil more exposed to the impacts of rainfall variability. These results support concerns related to the potentially increased severity of drought events in Central Europe. The reported trend patterns are of particular importance with respect to the expected climate change, given the robustness and consistency of the trends shown and the fact that they can be aligned with the existing climate model projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the historical occurrence of the European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis), the European grape vine moth (Lobesia botrana) and the Codling moth (Cydia pomonella) in southern Moravia and northern Austria from 1803–2008 by using climate and pest models. The pest model used, CLIMEX, indicates areas that are climatically favourable for the pest's development and long-term survival, considering the climatic parameters, especially daily air temperature, as determining factors for pest development. For model input parameters, two sets of meteorological data were prepared: (i) a generated meteorological series for 1803–2008 and (ii) a measured reference meteorological series for 1976–2008. In addition to estimating the historical climatic suitability for the persistence of a given pest, a second aim of the present study was to specify the core of the climatic niche during the continued presence of the pest and evaluate the applicability of the meteorological data generated for climate, based on pest mapping. This evaluation resulted in a partial overestimation of pest occurrence for L. botrana when using the generated meteorological data set. This species, native to warmer areas, has proved to be a sensitive indicator of increased temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The crop growth model HERMES was used to model crop rotation cycles at 12 experimental sites in the Czech Republic. A wide range of crops (spring and winter barley, winter wheat, maize, potatoes, sugar beet, winter rape, oats, alfalfa and grass), cultivated between 1981 and 2009 under various soil and climatic conditions, were included. The model was able to estimate the yields of field crop rotations at a reasonable level, with an index of agreement (IA) ranging from 0·82 to 0·96 for the calibration database (the median coefficient of determination (R2) was 0·71), while IA for verification varied from 0·62 to 0·93 (median R2 was 0·78). Grass yields were also estimated at a reasonable level of accuracy. The estimates were less accurate for the above-ground biomass at harvest (the medians for IA were 0·76 and 0·72 for calibration and verification, respectively, and analogous medians of R2 were 0·50 and 0·49). The soil mineral nitrogen (N) content under the field crops was simulated with good precision, with the IA ranging from 0·49 to 0·74 for calibration and from 0·43 to 0·68 for verification. Generally, the soil mineral N was underestimated, and more accurate results were achieved at locations with intensive fertilization. Simulated yields, soil N, water and organic carbon (C) contents were compared with long-term field measurements at Němčice, located within the fertile Moravian lowland. At this station, all of the observed parameters were reproduced with a reasonable level of accuracy. In the case of the organic C content, HERMES reproduced a decrease ranging from c. 85 to 77 tonnes (t)/ha (for the 0–0·3 m soil layer) between the years 1980 and 2007. In spite of its relatively simple approach and restricted input data, HERMES was proven to be robust across various conditions, which is a precondition for its future use for both theoretical and practical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present study investigates regional climate change impacts on agricultural crop production in Central and Eastern Europe, including local case studies with different focuses in Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The area studied experiences a continental European climate and is characterized by strong climatic gradients, which may foster regional differences or trends in the impacts of climate change on agriculture. To study the regional aspects and variabilities of climate change impacts on agriculture, the effect of climate change on selected future agroclimatic conditions, crop yield and variability (including the effect of higher ambient CO2 concentrations) and the most important yield limiting factors, such as water availability, nitrogen balance and the infestation risks posed by selected pests were studied. In general, the results predicted significant agroclimatic changes over the entire area during the 21st century, affecting agricultural crop production through various pathways. Simulated crop yield trends confirmed past regional studies but also revealed that yield-limiting factors may change from region to region. For example, pest pressures, as demonstrated by examining two pests, are likely to increase due to warmer conditions. In general, higher potentials for cereal yield increase are seen for wetter and cooler regions (i.e. uplands) than for the drier and warmer lowlands, where yield potentials will be increasingly limited by decreasing crop water availability and heat under most scenarios. In addition, yield variability will increase during the coming decades, but this may decrease towards the end of the 21st century. The present study contributes to the interpretation of previously conducted climate change impact and adaptation studies for agriculture and may prove useful in proposing future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]