Yield cropped by climate change, Govt takes farm to the lab

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing, a wise man had once said, and fortunately for the country’s far...

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing, a wise man had once said, and fortunately for the country’s farmers, the Centre is taking that advice. After a long bout of freak weather—the rains dried up, the mercury rose instead of dipping in December—the Centre has read the writing on the wall before the ink dries up and has announced a Rs 10-crore project to study the impact of climate change on agriculture.

According to the project, a part of the 10th Plan, 15 research institutes across the country will separately quantify the impact of weather change on agriculture as well as list measures that would need to be adopted to protect hilly areas, coastal eco-systems, fisheries and rainfed crops.


Lessons from the drought (PTI)

‘‘The entire research pattern is being re-oriented towards adapting our crops to climate change. It’s clear that even though the total rainfall may be the same in a given year, region-wise patterns are changing,’’ S. Nagarajan, director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), told The Indian Express.

Wheat is one of the key crops scientists have been studying to learn how a slight temperature change impacts yield. ‘‘Though we haven’t been able to quantify the change in yield, scientists are more clear on the trends now because of simulation and modelling,’’ P K Agarwal, head of the environment science of IARI, said. ‘‘In a drought situation like the present one, scientists should be ready with a contingency plan.’’

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Wheat is among the most sensitive of crops — 5-7 million tonnes of yield can change per year even with a slight change. Temperature has a direct co-relation with grain filling and the crop requires 400 degree days (the sum of temperature and days) to get optimum yield. When the temperature rises, the number of days dips below the 140-day benchmark and there isn’t enough time for grain filling. ‘‘It is estimated that the loss of one day translates into 50 kgs of wheat lost per hectare,’’ said Nagarajan.

‘‘The most critical period is March. If the temperature variability happens earlier on, the plant can still adjust,’’ IARI’s Agarwal added. Though most wheat-growing areas are irrigated, large parts of Central India are rainfed and these changes can affect marginal farmers. The scientists are concentrating on two aspects: developing new varieties that would adapt to varying temperature, rainfall and radiation patterns. And, advising farmers on changing conventional practices of irrigation and fertiliser management. ‘‘This year, we have advised farmers to create a micro-climate by increasing the frequency of irrigation and reducing the amount of water per irrigation,’’ Nagarajan said.

Vital to the research is the Phytotron Centre, located in the Pusa Institute in New Delhi, which has systems that can simulate a particular change in temperature, radiation and gases breaking research barriers. Here, scientists are in the process of isolating the germplasm that is best adapted to a particular change in climate.

The scientists have had some success with wheat: they’ve been able to isolate drought-resistant wheat C306 and transfer the strain to an advanced line. ‘‘We’ve been able to break the barrier only because we’re using advanced control environment,’’ K V Prabhu, a scientist at the Phytotron Centre, said. This technology will take a decade to trickle down to the farmers. Meanwhile, the laboratory has broken some other barriers: it has developed tomatoes that can grow in Ladakh and oats that are adapted to elevated levels of carbon dioxide. ‘‘It will some time before these become varieties but the fact that we are able to build this genetic stock is important,’’ Prabhu said.