Data from: Model-aided climate adaptation for future maize in the U.S.

Over the next three decades, rising population and changing dietary
preferences are expected to increase food demand by 25-75%. At the same
time climate is also changing –with potentially drastic impacts on food
production. Breeding new crop characteristics and adjusting management
practices are critical avenues to mitigate yield loss and sustain yield
stability under a changing climate. In this study, we use a mechanistic
crop model (MAIZSIM) to identify high-performing trait and management
combinations that maximize yield and yield stability for different
agroclimate regions in the US under present and future climate conditions.
We show that morphological traits such as total leaf area and phenological
traits such as grain-filling start time and duration are key properties
that impact yield and yield stability; different combinations of these
properties can lead to multiple high-performing strategies under
present-day climate conditions. We also demonstrate that high performance
under present-day climate does not guarantee high performance under future
climate. Weakened trade-offs between canopy leaf area and reproductive
start time under a warmer future climate led to shifts in high-performing
strategies, allowing strategies with higher total leaf area and later
grain-filling start time to better buffer yield loss and out-compete
strategies with a smaller canopy leaf area and earlier reproduction. These
results demonstrate that focused effort is needed to breed plant varieties
to buffer yield loss under future climate conditions as these varieties
may not currently exist, and showcase how information from process-based
models can complement breeding efforts and targeted management to increase
agriculture resilience.