Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies for Agronomic Crops

Climate change is a serious threat to agriculture and food security. Extreme weather conditions and changing patterns of precipitation lead to a decrease in the crop productivity. High temperatures and uncertain rainfall decrease the grain yield of crops by reducing the length of growing period. Future projections show that temperature would be increased by 2.5°C up to 2050. The projected rise in temperature would cause the high frequent and prolong heat waves that can decline the crop production. The rise in temperature results in huge reduction in yield of agronomic crops. Sustaining the crop production under changing climate is a key challenge. Therefore, adaptation measures are required to reduce the climate vulnerabilities. The adverse effect of climate change can be mitigated by developing heat tolerant cultivars and some modification in current production technologies. The development of adaptation strategies in context of changing climate provides the useful information for the stakeholders such as researchers, academia, and farmers in mitigating the negative effects of climate change

Climate change risk perception and adaptation to climate smart agriculture are required to increase wheat production for food security

Climate change poses a serious risk to wheat farmers in many regions of the world. The present study was conducted in the Sialkot District, Punjab, Pakistan, to investigate climate change trends during the past thirty years and to determine farmers’ knowledge and perceptions about climate change. The study also addresses the impacts of climate change on wheat production, current adaptation strategies, and limitations in adaptations to climate-smart agriculture (CSA) through a questionnaire-based survey. The historical weather data from the past thirty years indicated an increase in the mean annual minimum and maximum temperature and a decrease in annual total precipitation. Wheat productivity during the past thirty years showed an increasing trend but it was inconsistent. The respondents’ perception of climate change indicated that the literate farmers and those with broad farming experience were more knowledgeable about the climatic effects on wheat production. However, the survey results showed that the age of the farmers did not affect their perceptions. The current management practices are primarily based on prior experiences (70%) and traditional practices (30%). The standard management practices to increase farm productivity include an increase in fertilizer use (70%), a decrease in manure use (24%), and intercropping or switching to other crop cultivations (60%). The farmers stated that their reasons for limited adaptation to climate smart farm practices (CSFP) were due to their lack of knowledge and skills (86%), lack of modern technologies (74%), economic constraints (78%), politics (86%), and social influences (74%). Based on the survey results, the study suggests that addressing these gaps can increase farm-level wheat productivity to increase resilience. This can be achieved by introducing stateof- the-art farming practices through farmer training and by providing institutional services with a focus on climate-specific farm consultation services, leading to climate-smart agricultural practices for improved food security. Highlights - Literate farmers are more aware of climate change as compared to illiterate farmers. - The farmers emphasized the increase in both the summer and winter temperature. - Rainfall is identified as a major climate threat in the study area. - The farmers identified that the highest impact of climate change occurred during the harvest phase of wheat. - The farmers stated that the limited adoption of climate smart agricultural practices is due to lack of knowledge and technological, economic, and other gaps

Različitost interferona-α-A (IFN-α-A) u jaka (Bos grunniens) iz Pakistana

Among the various species of livestock, the domestic yak (Bos grunniens) belongs to the class Bovidae and is specially adapted for survival at high altitudes under extreme climatic conditions. Yak is a very useful species due to the multiple products it provides, such as meat, hide, milk and other dairy products. Like other livestock species, domestic yak is also in danger of infection by microbial infections. However, multiple immunity genes encode special protein products to fight infection. One of these immunity genes is interferon-α-A (IFN-α-A), which encodes proteins that belongs to cytokines and fights viral infections. The current study analysed the genetic variation and phylogenetic analysis of the IFN-α-A gene in domestic yak, with comparisons to other mammalian species to investigate immune diversity level, with the aim of designing molecular selection strategies for better disease resistant animals.Među različitim vrstama stoke, jedna je vrsta i jak (Bos grunniens). Ova životinja pripada obitelji Bovidae. Ova je vrsta prilagođena je preživljavanju na velikim visinama i u ekstremnim klimatskim uvjetima. Jak je vrlo korisna životinja zbog brojnih proizvoda koje od njega dobivamo, poput mesa, kože, mlijeka i mliječnih proizvoda. Kao i druge vrste stoke i jak je u opasnosti od infekcije brojnim mikrobnim infekcijama. Međutim, mnogo je imunogena koji kodiraju posebne proteinske proizvode za borbu protiv infekcija. Jedan od tih imunogena je interferon-α-A (IFN-α-A) koji kodira proteine koji pripadaju citokinima i bori se protiv virusnih infekcija. Ova studija osmišljena je za analizu genetske varijacije i filogenetsku analizu IFN-α –A gena u jaka (Bos grunniens) te njegovu usporedbu s drugim vrstama sisavaca u svrhu istraživanja razine različitosti imunosti za osmišljenja strategija molekularnog odabira za veću otpornost životinja na bolesti

Sustainable Irrigation Management for Higher Yield

Sustainable irrigation is sensible application of watering to plants in agriculture, landscapes that aids in meeting current survival and welfare needs. Sustainable irrigation management can help with climate change adaptation, labor, energy savings, and the production of higher-value and yield of crops to achieve zero hunger in water-scarce world. To ensure equal access to water and environmental sustainability, investments in expanded and enhanced irrigation must be matched by improvements in water governance. Sustainable irrigation must be able to cope with water scarcity, and be resilient to other resource scarcities throughout time in context of energy and finance. The themes and SDGs related to clean water, water resources sustainability, sustainable water usage, agricultural and rural development are all intertwined in the concept of “sustainable irrigation for higher yield.” Sustainable irrigation management refers to the capability of using water in optimum quantity and quality on a local, regional, national, and global scale to meet the needs of humans and agro-ecosystems at present and in the future to sustain life, protect humans and biodiversity from natural and human-caused disasters which threaten life to exist. Resultantly higher yields will ensure food security

The AgMIP Coordinated Climate-Crop Modeling Project (C3MP): Methods and Protocols

Climate change is expected to alter a multitude of factors important to agricultural systems, including pests, diseases, weeds, extreme climate events, water resources, soil degradation, and socio-economic pressures. Changes to carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]), temperature, andwater (CTW) will be the primary drivers of change in crop growth and agricultural systems. Therefore, establishing the CTW-change sensitivity of crop yields is an urgent research need and warrants diverse methods of investigation. Crop models provide a biophysical, process-based tool to investigate crop responses across varying environmental conditions and farm management techniques, and have been applied in climate impact assessment by using a variety of methods (White et al., 2011, and references therein). However, there is a significant amount of divergence between various crop models’ responses to CTW changes (R¨otter et al., 2011). While the application of a site-based crop model is relatively simple, the coordination of such agricultural impact assessments on larger scales requires consistent and timely contributions from a large number of crop modelers, each time a new global climate model (GCM) scenario or downscaling technique is created. A coordinated, global effort to rapidly examine CTW sensitivity across multiple crops, crop models, and sites is needed to aid model development and enhance the assessment of climate impacts (Deser et al., 2012)..

Pakistan Journal of Life and Social Sciences Estimating Growth and Yield Related Traits of Wheat Genotypes under Variable Nitrogen Application in SemiArid Conditions

The current study was conducted at Agronomic Research Area of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during 2008-09 and 2009-10 growing seasons, to investigate the grain yield and yield components of ten new wheat cultivars under variable nitrogen (N) levels. Each year, the crop was sown on 12 th November with four N levels (N 1 = 0 kg ha -1 , N 2 = 55 kg ha -1 , N 3 =110 kg ha -1 , N 4 = 220 kg ha -1 ) and ten cultivar