Spring hay yields in southern England have already been reduced by more than a third due to climate change and further declines are forecast, a new study warns.
The analysis, by Rothamsted Research and the University of Reading, has revealed that yields of animal fodder from grassland have fallen by around 35% over the last century.
The study forecasts that climate change will reduce spring hay yield by a further 20-50 percent between 2020 and 2080.
The data was collected between 1902 and 2016 from the Park Grass long-term experiment at Rothamsted’s main site in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.
A statistical modelling approach was used to analyse the data, taking into account unusual patterns of yield variability, but the wide forecast range for loss in yield is primarily due to uncertainty over future global greenhouse gas emissions.
The model confirmed that warmer and drier autumns, winters and, within limits, springs in the 20th and 21st centuries reduced yield.
The optimum spring weather is colder and wetter than the conditions that being seen now and those expected in the future.
Dr John Addy, a statistician at Rothamsted Research said: “The precise response of spring hay yield to temperature and rainfall varied during the year but there is an optimum 'goldilocks' spring rainfall and temperature associated with the maximum level of yield.
"Changes in autumn and winter temperature had more of an effect on yield than autumn and winter rainfall.”
Managed grassland is the UK’s largest crop by area at over 12 million hectares; it underpins a livestock sector worth over £13 billion each year.
Spring hay and silage is fed to livestock throughout the winter and in also in times of summer drought, as is the case this year.
There is a substantial legacy effect in this perennial crop: if the weather in one year is poor for hay yield, then yield in the following year is also reduced to some extent and vice versa.
Professor Richard Ellis of the University of Reading said: “Many livestock farmers in the region have already responded to change - the increase in the area of forage maize over the past half century being but one example.
"Future investments in milk production from grass are more likely to favour the wetter and cooler regions of the UK.”
The study's projections are specific to the Park Grass site, but the design of the long-term experiment means that a range of grassland systems are studied.
Plots on the site range from those with high fertiliser inputs, plots with only additions of farmyard manure and some plots with no additional inputs.
The relative effect of climate change on yield was remarkably similar across all these contrasting treatments.
