Climate Change Impacts on Potato Production in Michigan

As part of the MSU Project GREEEN (Generating Research and Extension to meet Economic and Environmental Needs) and in collaboration with Dave Douches and Julie Winkler our goal is to determine if existing potato cultivars grown in Michigan, which were developed primarily in the late-20th century, will be impacted by altered CO2 and temperature conditions anticipated in the mid-21st century. Our specific objectives are to 1) use modeling techniques to evaluate the future agronomic growing conditions for potato in Michigan based on predictions for mid-century CO2 concentrations and temperature and 2) utilize controlled growth chamber experiments to determine adaptability of current potato cultivars to climate conditions predicted for 2041-2070. We are currently assessing the physiological, agronomic and genomic responses of commercially grown chip processing cultivars to climate change projected for the mid-21st century using 3 different climate change model simulations.