Climate change impacts on sowing dates and rainfed maize productivity in Meskane District, Central Ethiopia

Climate change poses significant challenges to agricultural practices in the Meskane district, Ethiopia. This study therefore aims to assess historical and future climate variables and evaluate their impact on sowing date and maize productivity. The study used station observation data from the Ethiopian Meteorological Institute (EMI) and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) GCMs under two shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP4.5 and SSP8.5). Downscaling, bias correction, and statistical techniques are employed to validate the GCMs and climate patterns in the study area. The Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) crop model was employed to simulate maize productivity, integrating agronomic data such as sowing date sourced from the Agricultural Office of Meskane district. The study found annual changes in rainfall from 6.3% to 26.1% under SSP4.5 and from 9.7% to 51.2% under SSP8.5 in both scenarios across the three periods. In relation to such climatic variabilities, the study projected varying impacts on maize yields. Under SSP4.5, a reduction of 1.65% to 13.7%, while an increment of 2.82% was also observed in other periods. Under SSP8.5, reductions ranged from 1.56% to 2.33% alongside an increment of 1.12%–8.4%. These changes were observed across different periods and years. The results also identified optimal sowing dates of April 1, and April 15 and a plant population density of 6 per m −2 . Among the maize cultivars BH-660 and Melkassa, with BH-660 performing best, are selected as climate-resilient cultivars. Finally, the findings suggest policymakers and farmers adopt the study findings to improve adaptation and productivity under changing climate conditions.