The effect of precipitation on productivity of late grain crops and sunflower in the arid climate of the Donbass

Global warming, which has been occurring on the planet over the past 40–50 years, has also become evident in the southern and south-eastern regions of European Russia. In the Donetsk-Don region of the Russian steppe part, on the territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic, the average annual air temperature has increased to 9.8 °C (by 1.8 °C), while the hydrothermal coefficient for May-August has decreased from 0.79 to 0.74, and in August from 0.62 to 0.47 over the past 30 years. The climate aridity increase in the LPR results in the vulnerability of the territories and the climate risk of major yield failures. The purpose of the current study was to determine the effect of precipitation amount and pattern on productivity of such late spring crops as maize, sorghum, and sunflower, and to identify the periods of a year with precipitation that provide the strongest correlation with the productivity of the studied crops. During the period of study conducted on the experimental field with ordinary blackearth under field crop rotation by the staff of the department of agriculture and plant production of the FSBEI HE Luhansk VSAU, there has been noted that, on average, for 2008–2025, the amount of precipitation during a vegetation period (May-August) decreased by 54,7 mm (24.1 %) compared to the long-term norm, the average air temperature increased by 1,5 ºС (7.6 %), the amount of dry days increased by 15.3 days (48.0 %), the hydrothermal coefficient decreased to 0.71 (by 26.0 %). During the critical period of moisture demand for these crops (July–August), the correlation between precipitation and productivity was strong for maize (r = 0.725) and moderate for sunflower (r = 0.630) and grain sorghum (r = 0.681). The maximum correlation between precipitation and productivity was obtained for maize in the period May-September (r = 0,856), for grain sorghum in March-September (r = 0,758), and for sunflower in January-April (r = 0.741). There was no or insignificant correlation between productivity and precipitation in the autumn-winter-early spring period (October–March).

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