Investigating the future climate change impact in the Mediterranean basin to identify the improving durum wheat physiological characteristics

Among the management practices that have a major role in determining the final yield of durum wheat, both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality, the choice of sowing date and variety are the most important. For this reason, SiriusQuality was applied in each selected location to investigate the genotype x environment x management interaction and to identify the sowing window able to optimize the yield. The advance of the sowing window compared to the traditional one, allowed to obtain a higher yield at the expense of the grain quality. Furthermore, at all locations, Karim variety was the most productive. In literature it is well known that wheat is a culture particularly sensitive to climate stress events, especially if these occur during more sensitive phenological phases such as flowering and grain filling. To investigate the impact of climate change in both medium (2050-2070) and far (2070-2090) future, SiriusQuality was applied in Florence, Foggia, Santaella and Sidi El Aydi. The impact of future climate change was assessed considering the frequency and the intensity of the occurrence of three climate stress events for wheat. The results showed the impact of climate change will have spatial differences and it will be related to the used scenario. Positive effects, in terms of quantity of grain, were simulated in Florence for all scenarios and in Foggia only for the medium future. While, negative effects are expected in Santaella and Sidi El Aydi for all scenarios. In general, the increase in the occurrence of climate stress events was more pronounced especially during the first 10 days after anthesis. Considering the impact of climate change and the need to optimize durum wheat yield, SiriusQuality was used to identify wheat ideotypes able to maximize yield and reduce inter-annual yield variation coefficient during the medium future (2050) under two climate scenarios, GISS and HadGEM. For same locality and for the same climate scenario, the identified wheat ideotypes are described by different sets of varietal parameters, all capable of maximizing yield and reducing inter-annual yield variability. The results of this study can be useful to understand the intensity of future climate change impact in the medium and in the far future in the Mediterranean basin. Furthermore, they can suggest which varietal characteristics can be improved to increase wheat yield in a climate change context.