Identifying Suitable Areas for Dry-farming Wheat in Zanjan Province Based on Agricultural Climatic Parameters

Climate knowledge and investigating in climatologic requirements of plants is taken into account as a the most salient factor in cultivation. It can be determined the climatic potential conditions in the various regions and utilize them to a large extent by investigating in agro-meteorology. In this research, it has been applied the Geographic Information System to generate the climatic potential maps for Zanjan Province. To this purpose, the 30-year statistical records of climatology/synoptic stations have been used in the province of Zanjan. It was determined the date of cultivation for each section of the province after obtaining the beginning date of autumn precipitations for each part of the province. In the next step, the rainfall element was used for producing the isohyets climatic maps of annual rainfall, rainfall in the germination, blossoming, and ripe periods. The isotherm climatic maps of germination’s suitable temperature, thermal tensions during the blossoming, ripe periods were provided for the whole province. In the long run, the climatic potential regionalization map of dry-farming wheat was produced through overlying the relevant maps by GIS. The outputs showed that the major suitable regions for dry-farming of wheat are in the South and Central areas of the province. In contrast, the regions located in the North of the province – upland and sharp steep regions of Alburz mountain chain - hold ordinary and feeble conditions in the light of wheat cultivation.