Climate Change: Can Crop Science Meet the Challenge.

Climatic conditions control crop growth and development.  Climatic change will increase variation in both temperature and precipitation and cause increased variation in plant growth and ultimately crop yield.  With the increasing need for food production around the world it will be critical to increase the production and also decrease the variation in worldwide production levels. The changing temperature and precipitation regimes will place stresses on crops which will limit their ability to produce and even more so with forage crops because these are presently grown in areas with limited rainfall and high temperatures.  Crop scientists have a role in helping develop adaptive management strategies for crop production in order to cope with changing climate. It will be critical to a) improve abiotic and biotic stress resistance of crops, b) increase water and nutrient use efficiency, and c) increase the responsiveness of crops to rising CO₂ concentrations. In forage crops a critical component of our understanding will occur as we continue to develop improved linkages between the carbon and nitrogen cycles. A key piece of information in this process will be to integrate genetic, crop physiology, and soil-water-nutrient-crop management efforts in order to understand the crop by environment by management (G x E x M) interactions. An emphasis on understanding climate change and its impact on crop growth and yield could potentially provide the impetus for the next “green” revolution.  The identification of these emerging issues challenges crop scientists to seek a better understanding of these interactions in order to design and develop more stable crop and forage production systems around the world.