The
projected progressive reduction in rainfall progressively impacted
future broadacre crop yields (Figs. 6 and 8). For wheat, Yang et al.
(2014) show similar results. Across all five crops and locations, we
observed significantly strong associations (P = 0.05 to P = 0.001)
between grain yield and changes in rainfall (Fig. 9) but not at Hamilton
for barley due to higher annual rainfall compared to other locations. Generally, high rainfall variability accompanied by projected
reduction on annual rainfall will have a large influence on
plant available soil water content (SWC) (Tsubo et al., 2007; Turner,
2004), and, in turn, impact crop yields