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Received: 24 January 2018
Revised: 3 July 2018
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Accepted: 3 July 2018
DOI: 10.1111/jac.12299
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mitigating heat and chilling stress by adjusting the sowing date of maize in the North China Plain Beijing Tian1
| Jincheng Zhu1 | Yanshun Nie1 | Cailong Xu1,2 |
Qingfeng Meng1
| Pu Wang1
1
College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China 2
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
Abstract The North China Plain (NCP) is one of the major areas of cereal production, and in recent years its maize (Zea mays L.) production has been influenced by both heat and chilling stresses. Adjusting the sowing date is an effective measure for mitigating
Correspondence Qingfeng Meng and Pu Wang, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China. Emails:
[email protected] (QM);
[email protected] (PW). Funding information The National Key Research and Development Program of China, Grant/ Award Number: 2016YFD0300301; The Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/ Award Number: Grant 31501265; The Chinese National Basic Research Program, Grant/Award Number: 2015CB150402; The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Grant/Award Number: 2017QC102
these stresses. However, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We performed a 5‐year field experiment to determine how the sowing date mitigated heat and chilling stresses at Wuqiao Experimental Station in the NCP with three treatments: early sowing (ES), middle sowing (MS), and late sowing (LS). In all 5 years, higher grain yields were observed in the MS (averaged 11.7 Mg/ha) and LS (averaged 11.4Mg/ha) treatments compared with the ES (averaged 10.9Mg/ha) treatment. The lower yield in ES treatment mainly resulted from high temperature 5 days pre‐silking and 5 days post‐silking (>31.8°C). In 2015 and 2016, the lower grain yield in LS (11.4Mg/ha in 2015 and 11.2Mg/ha in 2016) treatment compared with MS (12.1Mg/ ha in 2015 and 11.9Mg/ha in 2016) was mainly because the minimum temperature was
