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Q&A with Abigail Swann on recent study projecting future for corn under climate change in UW News

Monday, June 17, 2024 - 10:30

In a UW News Q&A, UW Biology professor Abigail Swann discusses a project she led that combined climate projections with plant models to determine what combination of traits might be best adapted to future climates. The study used projections of weather and climate across the U.S. in 2050 and 2100 with a model that simulates corn’s growth to find the mix of traits that will produce the highest, most reliable yield under future conditions across the country. Lead author on this study was Jennifer Hsiao, who did this work as part of her UW doctoral degree in Biology.

Excerpt from the UW News Q&A:

Corn is one of the planet’s most important crops. It not only provides sweet kernels to flavor many dishes, but it’s also used in oils, as a sweetener syrup, and as a feed crop for livestock. Corn has been bred to maximize its yield on farms around the world.

But what will happen under climate change? Research led by the University of Washington combined climate projections with plant models to determine what combination of traits might be best adapted to future climates. The study used projections of weather and climate across the U.S. in 2050 and 2100 with a model that simulates corn’s growth to find the mix of traits that will produce the highest, most reliable yield under future conditions across the country.

The open-access paper was published in April in Environmental Research Food Systems. UW News asked senior author Abigail Swann, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences and of biology, about the study and its findings.

Our future climate will be warmer, have drier air and have a higher concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Is there a broad understanding of how all these changes together will affect plant growth?

Abigail Swann: For corn, a previous study by our group found that higher temperatures and drier air have about the same size impact, with both leading to less corn yield, while more CO2 available for photosynthesis increased yield. The increase in yield from CO2 wasn’t enough to counteract the decrease from the other two changes, however, so corn yields went down overall.

Overall, hotter temperatures like those we expect in the future will make crops grow faster but be less productive. Of course, shifts in precipitation also affect their growth in different locations, though that has less impact overall, and particularly for agricultural crops that rely on irrigation.

Read the full interview in UW News.

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