Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 138 (2010) 265–273 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee Assessing the vulnerability of Indian mustard to climate change K. Boomiraj a,∗ , B. Chakrabarti a , P.K. Aggarwal a , R. Choudhary a , S. Chander b a Division of Environmental Sciences, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, NRL Building, New Delhi 110012, India b Division of Entomology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India article info Article history: Received 27 October 2009 Received in revised form 25 May 2010 Accepted 26 May 2010 Available online 18 June 2010 Keywords: InfoCrop Simulation Sensitivity Impact Mustard Climate change abstract Rapeseed-mustard (Brassica spp.) is a major group of oilseed crop in the world with India being the second largest cultivator after China. Although there has been a significant increase in oilseed production since 1960s, the demand for oilseeds production in the future is likely to go up due to population increase and their income. Mustard is much sensitive to climatic variables and hence climate could have significant effect on its production. There are very limited studies to assess the impact of climate change on oilseed crops as compared to cereals. This paper presents results of a simulation study to evaluate the impact of projected climate change on Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) in contrasting agro-environments of the tropics. InfoCrop, a generic dynamic crop model, provides integrated assessment of the effect of weather, variety, pests and soil management practices on crop growth and yield, as well as on soil nitrogen and organic carbon dynamics in aerobic, anaerobic conditions and also greenhouse gas emissions. The vali- dated model (InfoCrop-mustard) has reasonably predicted phenology, crop growth and yield of mustard crop. The crop was found to be sensitive to changes in carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and temperature. Future climate change scenario analysis showed that mustard yields are likely to reduce in both irrigated and rainfed conditions. However, these reductions have spatial variation in different mustard growing region of India. In both irrigated and rainfed conditions, yield reduction would be higher in eastern India (67 and 57%) followed by central India (48 and 14%) and northern India (40.3 and 21.4%). This was due to maximum temperature rise in eastern part of the country, projected for 2080. In northern India, yield reduction of irrigated mustard was comparatively less due to prevailing lower temperature in this region during the crop growth period. But rainfed crop was found to be more susceptible to changing climate in north India due to projected reduction in rainfall in future scenarios. Adoption of adaptation measures like late sowing and growing long-duration varieties would be helpful in preventing yield loss of irrigated mustard in different locations of the country. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction India is among the top few vegetable oil economies of the world. Here, oilseeds are an important component of the agricultural econ- omy, next to food grains, in terms of area, production and value. Rapeseed-mustard (Brassica spp.) is a major group of oilseed crop of the world being grown in 53 countries across the six continents, with India being the second largest cultivator after China (Hedge, 2005). But still India is a net importer of vegetable oils and almost 40% of its annual edible oil needs are met by importation. In future, the demand for oilseeds production is likely to go up significantly due to increase in population and income. ∗ Corresponding author. Present address: Division of Environmental Sciences, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Agricultural Research Station, Kovilpatti 628501, Tamilnadu, India. Tel.: +91 04632 2120533; fax: +91 04632 221133. E-mail address: boomiraj@gmail.com (K. Boomiraj). The IPCC has projected a temperature increase of 0.5–1.2 ◦ C by 2020, 0.88–3.16 ◦ C by 2050 and 1.56–5.44 ◦ C by 2080 for the Indian region, depending on the scenario of future development (IPCC, 2007). Himalayan glaciers and snow cover are projected to con- tract leading to much higher variability in irrigation water supplies. It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipi- tation events will become more frequent. Overall, the temperature increases are likely to be much higher in winter season when crops such as mustard are grown. In this season, precipitation is also likely to decrease. These changes in the global climate may affect the crop yields, incidence of weeds, pests and plant diseases and the economic costs of agricultural production. Easterling et al. (2007) analyzed mod- eling results to show that in low-latitude regions, a temperature increase of 1–2 ◦ C is likely to have negative yield impacts for major cereals. There is a probability of 10–40% loss in crop production in India with increase in temperature by 2080–2100 (Fischer et al., 2007; Parry et al., 2004; IPCC, 2007). There are a few Indian stud- ies (Saseendran et al., 2000; Aggarwal, 2008) which also confirm 0167-8809/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2010.05.010