Ruchita S, Rohit S
Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy which in turn relies on the monsoon season. Rising global temperature is not only causing climate change but also contributing to the irregular rainfall patterns. Uneven rainfall patterns, increased temperature, elevated CO2 content in the atmosphere are important climatic parameters which affects the crop production. Research studies indicate that weathering parameters influence strongly (67%) compared to other factors like soil and nutrient management (33%) during the cropping season. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the global mean surface temperature will likely rise and may result into uneven climatic changes. This rising temperature may affect crop yield at large scale. It has been reported over 20th century that rising temperature plays an important role towards global warming as compared to precipitation. Researchers have confirmed that crop yield falls by 3% to 5% for every 1°F increase in the temperature. In India, crop production may be divided into two seasons: Kharif (influenced by south-west monsoon) and rabi (mostly influenced by north-east monsoon). Present study shows that the crop production is dependent on temperature. Temperature vs. crop production shows a funnel shape for all the seasons. For the lower temperature both the properties are almost linearly correlated. In rabi, at the beginning production show a negative trend with temperature which slowly converts to the positive trend. In kharif that negative trend is not visible. At higher temperatures production increases for both the seasons but with large scattering. The findings may be helpful to study the effect of climate change on the crop production.
