The study on yield gap is significant for ensuring food security. However, there are fewer studies about the impact of future climate change on crop yield gap. In this study, APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator) and BCC-CSM2-MR (BCC) model were combined to study wheat yield gap under future scenarios in the North China Plain (NCP). Data from BCC model under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) showed an increase in mean maximum temperature (Tmax), mean minimum temperature (Tmin), mean radiation (Rad) and total precipitation (Pre) during wheat growth period across the NCP. The results showed that the climate change in the future had positive impacts on wheat actual yield and potential yield. The increase rate in the potential yield exceeded that in the actual yield, which led to a significant increase in the yield gap. Meanwhile, yield gap was significantly negatively correlated with Tmin and positively correlated with Tmax, but not significantly correlated with other variables. In addition, the actual yield was significantly affected by the delay in sowing date (SD), while the advance or delay in SD has less impact on the potential yield. Furthermore, late SDs will induce the significant increase of yield gap under different future scenarios. Finally, we suggest that more effective adaptation strategies (in addition to the adjustment of SD) are needed in the future to mitigate the impacts of climate change on wheat production.
Zhao et al. (Mon,) studied this question.