Assessing climate resilience of barley cultivars in northern conditions during 1980-2020

Northern agriculture faces a rapidly changing climate with increased weather variability. Yield resilience can be assessed through diversity in responses to critical weather patterns, as demonstrated in several European crops. In this study, we extend the work to demonstrate how the response diversity of barley in Finland has developed over time. A total of 257 barley cultivars tested in 18 locations in Finland during 1980-2020 were clustered according to their yield responses to 12 critical agrometeorological variables. Clustering was based on the scores of the principal component analysis used to group the agrometeorological variables based on the yield responses. To identify the development in the response diversity, the diversity of the clusters cultivated was determined annually. The response diversity increased at the beginning of the 21st century but has declined since 2013. Consequently, the Northern barley cultivar selection has become more vulnerable to weather variation despite an increase of cultivars officially tested. The principal component analysis enabled a more interpretable and meaningful clustering than the formerly performed direct clustering of Finnish barley cultivars according to the agrometeorological variables.