In our study we analysed the meteorological data of the period between 2001 and 2020 measured in Karcag, and the yield averages of four typical plants of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county. We determined the characteristic PaDI0 drought indexes for each investigated year, classified the years into drought categories, and assigned the county’s yield data to them. We found the tendency of drought increased during the examined period, i.e. the drought years occurred more frequently. The most severe (medium strength drought) occurred in two years, when the yield of all the studied four plants decreased compared to the results of the droughtless years. In the case of winter wheat, this difference is statistically significant, while in the case of maize, we found a significant decrease in yield even in the years of moderate drought. We compared the annual yield averages to the yield average of the droughtless years, and we have not found any decrease in the yield of winter wheat, sunflower and rapeseed since 2014, and moreover the yield averages continuously increased. This may be a sign of that the farmers of the county are prepared to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

Keywords: climate change, drought, drought index, Karcag