A Review of impacts of climate change on crop Phenology and productivity

Abstract

Changes in crop phenology and its interaction with the changing environmental conditions were highlighted as a basis for formulating reliable adaptation policies. Specific stages of growth (i.e. flowering and grain filling) are particularly sensitive to weather conditions and critical for final yield. The timing of the crop cycle determines the crop productivity. The crop phenology and productivity are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors with day length, temperature, moisture availability and humidity. Crop productivity is very less and one of the main constraint for low productivity is qualitatively short day nature making its yield formation stages coincides with terminal drought in a nutshell, in view of climate change effects, it is the need of the hour to address the physiological yield constraints by sincere effort for generating technology for realizing potential yield under rainfed condition. As global warming is continuous, change in climate particularly, rise in temperature coupled with elevated CO2, low and variable precipitation will have pronounced effect on crop phenology and productivity. The critical knowledge gaps related to effect of climate change on phenology and productivity of crop exists. Predicting the phenological events is a major challenge for assessment of the impact of an adaptation to weather vulnerability.