In the past, agricultural field stations (AFS) have provided important insights into cropping systems, and research conducted there has greatly helped to optimize these systems. However, with increasingly variable weather, as already experienced in many locations in a changing climate, reliability of results obtained in field experiments may decline. The question is therefore how transferable the findings from AFS may be in the future, as extreme weather events increase, and "exceptional years" may become the rule. Further, in response to this situation, how can AFS, and the design of field experiments answer to these challenges? Thanks for your views - Thomas
This can be overcome by increasing the no. Of weather station spatially.
HI Thomas Döring , The agricultural field stations have to conduct location specific field experiments/trials to find out suitable technology adaptable for that location to makeup climate change.
Yes, I agree, but we are faced with increasing weather variability which, I argue, endangers the core work of the field stations. We used to have a "typical" weather for a given location, so that we could work within a relatively stable environment, and make recommendations based on the results of the field experiment conducted within this frame. However, we are already now facing a marked change in that this environmental stability is deteriorating. So what can we do if every other year is actually untypical or extreme? Our recommendations may become quite unreliable. The other point is of course that means (temperature etc.) are shifting as well. At the moment I think one solution would be to basically massively increase sampling effort, i.e. by having more locations for field experimentation, or in other words, by decentralizing agronomic field trialling. Best wishes, Thomas
Hi Thomas,
I think the agricultural field research maybe has to focus on intercropping systems which contain plants which can grow at the different extremes in a good manner. So that one crop maybe grows good if the year gets wet and the other grows better if it's warm and dry. The water and nutrient-budget are of special importance in connection with the used root space of each plant.
Best regards, Namid
Yes that's what I am saying we have increase the nuber of experimental station as well as weather station. The variability in rainfall is more than the other parameters si at least rain gauge can be increased in number if one can not afford for full observatory.
Providing rainwater harvesting tanks that can hold the surplus rainwater in a limited area. After measuring how many millimetres of rain fall, it will be possible to assess how to size large-scale containers to hold the excess rainwater during so-called 'water bombs'. The water retained in the containers can be used for other purposes later, or released into the environment when the storm emergency is over.
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