Developing spring wheat in the Noah-MP land surface model (v4.4) for growing seasondynamics and responses to temperature stress

The US Northern Great Plains and the Canadian Prairiesare known as the world's breadbaskets for their large spring wheat productionand exports to the world. It is essential to accurately represent springwheat growing dynamics and final yield and improve our ability to predictfood production under climate change. This study attempts to incorporatespring wheat growth dynamics into the Noah-MP crop model for a long timeperiod (13 years) and fine spatial scale (4 km). The study focuses on threeaspects: (1) developing and calibrating the spring wheat model ata point scale, (2) applying a dynamic planting and harvest date to facilitatelarge-scale simulations, and (3) applying a temperature stress function toassess crop responses to heat stress amid extreme heat. Model results areevaluated using field observations, satellite leaf area index (LAI), andcensus data from Statistics Canada and the United States Department of Agriculture(USDA). Results suggest that incorporating a dynamic planting and harvestthreshold can better constrain the growing season, especially the peaktiming and magnitude of wheat LAI, as well as obtain realistic yieldcompared to prescribing a static province/state-level map. Results alsodemonstrate an evident control of heat stress upon wheat yield in threeCanadian Prairies Provinces, which are reasonably captured in the newtemperature stress function. This study has important implications in terms ofestimating crop yields, modeling the land-atmosphere interactions in agricultural areas, and predicting crop growth responses to increasing temperatures amidstclimate change.