An international consortium of researchers looking at the impacts of climate change on agriculture has warned that rising temperatures could impact on wheat yields.

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Using a huge range of data to predict the changes in store (the researchers compared thirty wheat crop models with new data from field experiments), the international team forecast global wheat production losses of 6 percent for each degree centigrade of global warming. They also said the variability of wheat yields would increase across regions and seasons.

Publishing their results last week, the consortium, which includes researchers the Rothamsted Institute in Hertfordshire, warned that immediate action is needed to limit the effects of climate change, including keeping the rise in future temperatures to a lower level, and that moves must be made to adapt agriculture to changes which are occurring now.

Understanding how different climate factors impact food production is essential for adaptation and mitigation to climate change, the researchers said, publishing their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change. The new data used by researchers included a trial where artificial heating was used to examine wheat crops' responses to high temperatures (wheat was exposed to mean growing season temperatures ranging from 15 to 32°C).

Dr Mikhail Semenov, whose team at Rothamsted Research contributed to this research, commented, "Options exist to adapt and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on global wheat production.

"Breeding for late maturing cultivars with longer grain filling to recapture the temperature-induced loss of biomass and grain yield could be beneficial as long as exposure to heat stress and terminal drought does not become counter-productive. Optimizing this trade-off should be region specific, and crop modelling is a key exploration tool to underpin crop adaptation for a changing climate."