The mitigation of climate change effect on maize grain yield by changing of planting date in Moghan

Appropriate planning and making strategies to increase crop adaptation to possible future climate change requires a good understanding of the trend of climate factors and response of the crops to climate changes. Therefore, this study was conducted tosimulate the climate change effects on phenological stages and grainyield of maize hybrid SC 647 and to explore the possibility of employing planting dates asmitigating options to decrease the climate change impacts on maize production in Moghan region, Ardabil, Iran. LARS-WG model wasused to simulate the climatic parameters as one stochastic growing season under two types of General Circulation Models ((UnitedKingdom Met. Office Hadley Center: HadCM3) and (Institute Pierre Simon Laplace: IPCM4)) and three scenarios (A1B, A2 and B1) for three periods including 2025, 2055 and 2085. Aqua crop model was used to simulate maize growth. The results of modelevaluation showed that LARS-WG had appropriate prediction for climatic parameters and simulation of stochastic growing season in future climate change conditions. The simulation of phenological stages by AquaCrop model showed that the period from planting to emergence and flowering, grain filling period and maturity were reduced in majority of scenarios under climatechange. The results indicated that the grain yield of maize may be reduced 4.4% to 30% as affected by climate change based on common planting date in baseline. In order to reduce the negative impact of climate change, the strategy of changing planting date was used. The results of simulation showed that earlier planting date near 15 April (earlier than the current planting date, the second ten days of May) caused higher yield compared with other planting dates (30 April and 31 March) in 2025. In 2055 and 2085, However, the planting date of 31 March and 15 April in terms of climate change will be more appropriate. It seems thatmanagement of planting dates can be regarded as appropriate approach to reduce adverse effects of climate change on the grain yield of maize.