TY - JOUR
T1 - Genetic progress battles climate variability
T2 - drivers of soybean yield gains in China from 2006 to 2020
AU - Zhang, Li
AU - Zheng, Haoyu
AU - Li, Wenjie
AU - Olesen, Jørgen Eivind
AU - Harrison, Matthew Tom
AU - Bai, Zhiyuan
AU - Zou, Jun
AU - Zheng, Axiang
AU - Bernacchi, Carl
AU - Xu, Xingyao
AU - Peng, Bin
AU - Liu, Ke
AU - Chen, Fu
AU - Yin, Xiaogang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, INRAE and Springer-Verlag France SAS, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023/8
Y1 - 2023/8
N2 - While improvement of soybean productivity under a changing climate will be integral to ensuring sustainable food security, the relative importance of genetic progress attributed to historical yield gains remains uncertain. Here, we compiled 16,934 cultivar-site-year observations from experiments during the period of 2006–2020 to dissect effects of genetic progress and climate variability on China’s soybean yield gains over time. Over the past 15 years, mean yields in the Northeast China (NEC), Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (HHH), and Southern Multi-cropping Region (SMR) were 2830, 2852, and 2554 kg ha−1, respectively. Our findings show that genetic progress contributed significantly to yield gains, although underpinning mechanisms varied regionally. Increased pod number per plant (PNPP) drove yield gains in the NEC, while both PNPP and 100-grain weight (100-GW) contributed to yield gains in the HHH. In all regions, incremental gains in the reproductive growing periods increased PNPP, 100-GW, and yields. While heat stress in the reproductive period reduced average yields in all regions, superior yielding cultivars (top 25%) in the HHH and SMR were less sensitive to heat stress during the reproductive phases, indicating that the higher yielding cultivars benefited from genetic improvement in heat stress tolerance. Our results highlight the importance of genetic improvements in enabling sustainable food security under global warming and increasingly frequent heat stress.
AB - While improvement of soybean productivity under a changing climate will be integral to ensuring sustainable food security, the relative importance of genetic progress attributed to historical yield gains remains uncertain. Here, we compiled 16,934 cultivar-site-year observations from experiments during the period of 2006–2020 to dissect effects of genetic progress and climate variability on China’s soybean yield gains over time. Over the past 15 years, mean yields in the Northeast China (NEC), Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (HHH), and Southern Multi-cropping Region (SMR) were 2830, 2852, and 2554 kg ha−1, respectively. Our findings show that genetic progress contributed significantly to yield gains, although underpinning mechanisms varied regionally. Increased pod number per plant (PNPP) drove yield gains in the NEC, while both PNPP and 100-grain weight (100-GW) contributed to yield gains in the HHH. In all regions, incremental gains in the reproductive growing periods increased PNPP, 100-GW, and yields. While heat stress in the reproductive period reduced average yields in all regions, superior yielding cultivars (top 25%) in the HHH and SMR were less sensitive to heat stress during the reproductive phases, indicating that the higher yielding cultivars benefited from genetic improvement in heat stress tolerance. Our results highlight the importance of genetic improvements in enabling sustainable food security under global warming and increasingly frequent heat stress.
KW - Cultivar
KW - Extreme weather
KW - Genetic progress
KW - Heat stress
KW - Phenology
KW - Yields
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U2 - 10.1007/s13593-023-00905-9
DO - 10.1007/s13593-023-00905-9
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85166541162
SN - 1774-0746
VL - 43
JO - Agronomy for Sustainable Development
JF - Agronomy for Sustainable Development
IS - 4
M1 - 50
ER -