How does the climate change influence the productivity of wheat? Essay

To ensure the climate change doesn't hinder the productivity of wheat, researchers across the globe have been working to provide suitable technology possibilities to the farmers in diverse settings of the developing world. One of these efforts is a series of "mega-environments" (MEs) outlined by International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Mega environments are non-contagious areas with similar abiotic stresses, cropping systems, consumer preferences and volume production. Mega-environments help CIMMYT to monitor the impacts and changes of crop land uses, as productivity factors change. Due to the monitoring of the wheat crops coupled with geographic information data, CIMMYT has formed a basis to advance current general classifications of a single static heat-stress environment to determine spatial extents and frequencies of the differing heat-stress environments. The monitoring of the crop trend provides meaningful data for evaluating the influence of climate change on the wheat being grown. For example, wheat production in the Yaqui valley of Sonora in northwest Mexico has been regularly and accurately recorded for total annual and harvested area. With just one glance on the data provided, we can see that from 1951 to 1975, the increase in wheat yield have been in a linear manner. Although in subsequent years, the rate of yield has declined, overall the result was positive. The average rate of wheat yield in 1951 to 2005 has been impressive, and similar rates have been seen across the lands of Pakistan and India. From the analysis of the first chart, the 1990-1991 crop cycle was characterized by high rainfalls with high minimum air temperature and low radiation from December 1990 to March 1991(Table 3, CIMMYT).
There is evidence that the minimum air temperature has been "above normal" during winter cycles over the past 15 years, which has contributed to the reduction of wheat yield. Many years, from 1995 to 2005, were associated with high minimum temperatures during cloudy periods from January to March. Research in Yaqui valley has demonstrated that high wheat yields are strongly associated with low average temperatures and a high level of radiation for a period of 30 days. These results suggest that new sources of genetic variation combined with more efficient breeding and selection methods must be pursued further to ensure significant increases in genetic yield potential for spring bread and winter wheat cultivation.
Wheat yields in warm environments can be raised significantly by changing agronomic practices. Conservation agriculture leads to substantial loss in tillage, surface retention of adequate crop remains, and diversified, economically viable crop rotation. Conservative agriculture can help improve rural income by reducing producing costs, managing agro-ecosystem productivity and diversify more sustainably, and minimizing unfavorable environmental impacts, especially on small and medium scale farms (Kataki, 2001). One of the chief benefits of using conservation agricultures practices would be to reverse continuing soil degradation (Lal, 2004) that threatens intensive wheat yields in plains in South Asia. Around 300 million people, who are dependent on rice-wheat cropping rotations for food are being threatened by degraded soil and dwindling water supplies (Ladha, 2003).