Abstract

Population growth and changes in climate and diets will likely further increase the pressure on agriculture and water resources globally. Currently, staple crops are obtained from annuals plants. A shift towards perennial crops may enhance many ecosystem services, but at the cost of higher water requirements and lower yields. It is still unclear when the advantages of perennial crops overcome their disadvantages and perennial crops are thus a sustainable solution. Here we combine a probabilistic description of the soil water balance and crop development with an extensive dataset of traits of congeneric annuals and perennials to identify the conditions for which perennial crops are more viable than annual ones with reference to yield, yield stability, and effective use of water. We show that the larger and more developed roots of perennial crops allow a better exploitation of soil water resources and a reduction of yield variability with respect to annual species, but their yields remain lower when considering grain crops. Furthermore, perennial crops have higher and more variable irrigation requirements and lower water productivity. These results are important to understand the potential consequences for yield, its stability, and water resource use of a shift from annual to perennial crops and, more generally, if perennial crops may be more resilient than annual crops in the face of climatic fluctuations.

Keywords

Agricultural sustainability; Water productivity; Annual crops; Perennial crops; Stochastic model; Irrigation

Published in

Advances in Water Resources
2018, Volume: 112, pages: 189-202
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Vico, Giulia

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture


UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.12.014

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/94744