What happens to agriculture when temperature increases and does low temperature affects crops and what temperature is best for agriculture?
Climate change can affect agriculture in a variety of ways. Beyond a certain range of temperatures, warming tends to reduce yields because crops speed through their development, producing less grain in the process. And higher temperatures also interfere with the ability of plants to get and use moisture. Low temperatures can affect plants in several ways. First, temperatures near the minimum for plant growth will reduce the plant's rate of metabolism and growth. If the temperature, and therefore the metabolism, remains low for an extended period, plant quality will suffer, and death may occur. Thus, plants should generally be grown at warm temperatures of 70°F to 75°F to avoid excessively long production times. By growing cold-sensitive crops at warm temperatures, you can actually reduce the amount of energy used for heating on a per-crop basis than if they were grown at cooler temperatures.
The different types of crops required variuos range of temperature. Both higher and lower temperature are affect the crop growth, development and productivity. All crops need an optimum temperature for their better growth, flowering, fruiting, ripening and harvesting. Generally 20-25°C temperature are required by all the crops.
Temperature changes also affect seed germination, leaf development, flowering, harvest, and fruit production. However, the effects of temperature on crop development are often implicitly presumed to be associated with air, but not soil temperature. Light freeze - 29° to 32° Fahrenheit will kill tender plants. Moderate freeze - 25° to 28° Fahrenheit is widely destructive to most vegetation. Severe or hard freeze - 25° Fahrenheit and colder causes heavy damage to most plants. Low temperature affects several aspects of crop growth viz., survival, cell division, photosynthesis, water transport, growth and finally yield. If the plants grown in hot temperature are exposed to low temperature, they will be killed (or) severely injured. Some of the best conditions recommended for healthy plant growth consist of: Air Temperature - 24 °C Day/ 19 °C Day (75F/65F) H2O Temperature – no higher than 25 °C, cool at 26 °C, heat at 24 °C. Relative Humidity – minimum 50 and no higher than 70%. Most plants tolerate normal temperature fluctuations. In general, foliage plants grow best between 70 degrees and 80 degrees F. during the day and between 60 degrees to 68 degrees F. Seedlings, with their tender new leaves, often give up the ghost when temperatures dip to 32-33°F. Tropical plants have differing low-temperature thresholds. Some keel over when temps fall to 40°F; others crumble at 35°F. Other plants are just hardy by nature and can withstand temperatures as low as 18-20°F. Climate change can affect agriculture in a variety of ways. Beyond a certain range of temperatures, warming tends to reduce yields because crops speed through their development, producing less grain in the process. And higher temperatures also interfere with the ability of plants to get and use moisture. High temperature considerably influences the crops by affecting several physiological injuries like leaf abscission, leaf scorching, senescence, and root and shoot growth limitation that subsequently leads to a reduction in yield. However, when there is a heat wave and soil temperatures increase, plant roots are less able to compensate for varying levels of soil moisture within the soil profile. When soil temperature rises above an optimum threshold, plant water and nutrient uptake can be impeded, causing damage to plant components. Extreme weather events can have severe detrimental effects on crop yield, and therefore, agricultural production. Most crops are sensitive to direct effects of high temperature, decreased precipitation, flooding, and untimely freezes during critical growth phases. When the climate changes, the rainfall cycle, magnitude and the timing of rainfall are altered leaving the farmers unprepared for the change. When the temperature is warm, the water is held in the form of moisture. In arid regions, soil moisture gets evaporated fast leaving less water for crop production.
Each crop has 'cardinal temperature' for growth and development. If the temp is within that range crop would not be affected much
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