U.S. Agro-Climate in 20th Century: Growing Degree Days, First and Last Frost, Growing Season Length, and Impacts on Crop Yields

Climate change has become a global phenomenon having severe ramifications on socio-economic sectors such as agriculture, water resources, environment and health. The effects of changing climate are much more prominent on developing economies as compared to the implications on well-developed industrial powers. Pakistan is one of the struggling agricultural economies confronting the issues of food insecurity as a consequence of profound climatic conditions. Notable changes in climatic factors such as temperature can have a direct effect on Growing Degree Days (GDD) and may alter the growing season length (GSL). Growing season length is an important factor in ensuring that each crop developmental stage has a sufficient period for the transition to the next developmental stage. Lengthening or shortening of GSL can have dire threats to crop development and ultimately, production. This study has been conducted to assess the changes in GSL in response to the variability in daily maximum and minimum temperatures with a base temperature of 5°C across Northern, Central and Southern Pakistan. RCP 4.5 and 8.5 have shown an increase of 2°C and 5.4°C in minimum and maximum temperatures, respectively.

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Analysis of future climate scenarios and their impact on agriculture in eastern Arkansas, United States

Journal of Water and Land Development ◽

10.2478/jwld-2018-0029 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 97-112 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

John W. Magugu ◽

Song Feng ◽

Qiuqiong Huang ◽

Yongjun Zhang ◽

Grant H. West

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Extreme Precipitation ◽

Growing Season ◽

Future Climate ◽

Growing Degree Days ◽

Total Precipitation ◽

Season Length ◽

Degree Days ◽

Spring Frost ◽

Growing Season Length

Abstract Impact of climate change on crop growth is dynamic and difficult to quantify due to heterogeneity of the associated effects and their interactions within the Earth system. The main objective of this study is to establish how future climate change might affect agriculture, through an assessment of temperature and precipitation driven parameters. These include percentage number of rainy days with extreme precipitation, percentage of extreme precipitation relative to wet days, first fall frost days, last spring frost days, growing degree days, growing season length and the total precipitation. Results show modest increase in total precipitation with a slight increase in extreme precipitation, representing up to 2.2% increase by 2060 under representative concentration pathway (RCP 8.5) scenario. There would be late first fall frost days, early last spring frost days and increased growing season length by up to 2 weeks in 2060. The growing degree days are projected to increase under all scenarios for all crops, with cotton showing the largest increase of up to 37% relative to the baseline period.

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Long-Term Trends in Air Temperature Distribution and Extremes, Growing Degree‐Days, and Spring and Fall Frosts for Climate Impact Assessments on Agricultural Practices in Nebraska

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology ◽

10.1175/jamc-d-11-0146.1 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 51 (11) ◽

pp. 2060-2073 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Kari E. Skaggs ◽

Suat Irmak

Keyword(s):

Air Temperature ◽

Central City ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Growing Season ◽

Growing Degree Days ◽

Degree Days ◽

Temperature Changes ◽

Growing Season Length ◽

Average Maximum

AbstractAir temperature influences agricultural practices and production outcomes, making detailed quantifications of temperature changes necessary for potential positive and negative effects on agricultural management practices to be exploited or mitigated. Temperature trends of long-term data for five agricultural locations, ranging from the subhumid eastern to the semiarid western parts of Nebraska, were studied to determine local temperature changes and their potential effects on agricultural practices. The study quantified trends in annual and monthly average maximum and minimum air temperature (Tmax and Tmin), daily temperature range (DTR), total growing degree-days, extreme temperatures, growing‐season dates and lengths, and temperature distributions for five heavily agricultural areas of Nebraska: Alliance, Central City, Culbertson, Fremont, and Hastings. July and August were the months with the greatest decreases in Tmax for the central part of Nebraska—Culbertson, Hastings, and Central City. Alliance, Culbertson, and Fremont had year-round decreases in DTR. Central City and Hastings experienced growing‐season decreases in DTR. Increases in growing‐season length occurred at rates of 14.3, 16.7, and 11.9 days century−1 for Alliance, Central City, and Fremont, respectively. At Hastings, moderately earlier last spring frost (LS) at a rate of 6.6 days century−1 was offset by an earlier (2.7 days century−1) first fall frost (FF), resulting in only a 3.8 days century−1 longer growing season. There were only slight changes in LS and FF dates of around 2 days earlier and 1 day later per century, respectively, for Culbertson.

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Growing‐season length and soil microbes influence the performance of a generalist bunchgrass beyond its current range

Ecology ◽

10.1002/ecy.3095 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 101 (9) ◽

Author(s):

Clifton P. Bueno de Mesquita ◽

Samuel A. Sartwell ◽

Steven K. Schmidt ◽

Katharine N. Suding

Keyword(s):

Soil Microbes ◽

Growing Season ◽

Season Length ◽

Current Range ◽

Growing Season Length

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CHLOROGENIC ACID CONTENT OF SUNFLOWER SEED FLOUR AS AFFECTED BY SEEDING AND HARVEST DATE

Canadian Journal of Plant Science ◽

10.4141/cjps76-146 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 56 (4) ◽

pp. 901-905 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

D. G. DORRELL

Keyword(s):

Chlorogenic Acid ◽

Acid Content ◽

Vegetative Growth ◽

Sunflower Seed ◽

Growing Season ◽

Growing Degree Days ◽

Degree Days ◽

Normal Field ◽

Seed Flour ◽

Seeding Date

The effect of seeding date on the chlorogenic acid content of sunflower seed flour was determined by seeding the cultivars Krasnodarets and Peredovik at seven dates, starting on 14 May, over 3 yr. Sequential plantings were made at increments of approximately 70 growing degree days (base = 5.6 C). Plants were harvested at normal field maturity. The time and rate of deposition of chlorogenic acid was determined by harvesting plants at 7-day intervals from 21 to 49 days after flowering. The seeds were dehulled and defatted before determining the chlorogenic acid content of the flour. Chlorogenic acid content declined steadily from an average of 4.22% for the first seeding to 3.30% for the last seeding. About one-half of the total chlorogenic acid was present 21 days after flowering. Deposition continued rapidly for the next 14 days then the level began to stabilize. Delay in seeding tended to shorten the period of vegetative growth and shift the deposition of chlorogenic acid to a cooler portion of the growing season. It is suggested that a combination of these factors caused the reduction in chlorogenic acid content of sunflower flour.

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Timing and rate of bud formation in Pinus resinosa

Canadian Journal of Botany ◽

10.1139/b71-257 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 49 (10) ◽

pp. 1821-1832 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Edward Sucoff

Keyword(s):

Quantitative Data ◽

Shoot Growth ◽

Pinus Resinosa ◽

Growing Season ◽

Axillary Buds ◽

Growing Degree Days ◽

Degree Days ◽

Bud Formation ◽

Late Season ◽

Apical Dome

During the 1969 and 1970 growing season buds were collected almost weekly from matched trees in northeastern Minnesota. Cataphyll primordia for the year n + 1 shoot began forming at the time that internodes in the year n shoot started elongating (late April) and continued forming until early September. Primordia for axillary buds started forming about 2 months later and stopped forming at the same time as cataphylls. The size and deposition activity of the apical dome simultaneously increased during the early growing season and decreased during the late season. The maximum rates in July were over nine cataphylls per day.Rate of cataphyll deposition paralleled elongation of the needles on subtending shoots. Forty to fifty percent of the cataphylls had been formed when shoot growth was 95% complete. Although the bulk of the depositions occurred earlier in 1970, when growing degree days were used as the clock, the 2 years were similar.The results provide quantitative data to complement the histologic emphasis of previous studies.

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Growing Season Length as a Key Factor of Cumulative Net Ecosystem Exchange Over the Pine Forest Ecosystems in Europe

International Agrophysics ◽

10.1515/intag-2015-0026 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 129-135 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Alina Danielewska ◽

Marek Urbaniak ◽

Janusz Olejnik

Keyword(s):

Air Temperature ◽

Measurement Data ◽

Growing Season ◽

Pine Forest ◽

Pine Forests ◽

Net Ecosystem Productivity ◽

Ecosystem Productivity ◽

Season Length ◽

Important Species ◽

Growing Season Length

Abstract The Scots pine is one of the most important species in European and Asian forests. Due to a widespread occurrence of pine forests, their significance in the energy and mass exchange between the Earth surface and the atmosphere is also important, particularly in the context of climate change and greenhouse gases balance. The aim of this work is to present the relationship between the average annual net ecosystem productivity and growing season length, latitude and air temperature (tay) over Europe. Therefore, CO2 flux measurement data from eight European pine dominated forests were used. The observations suggest that there is a correlation between the intensity of CO2 uptake or emission by a forest stand and the above mentioned parameters. Based on the obtained results, all of the selected pine forest stands were CO2 sinks, except a site in northern Finland. The carbon dioxide uptake increased proportionally with the increase of growing season length (9.212 g C m-2 y-1 per day of growing season, R2 = 0.53, p = 0.0399). This dependency showed stronger correlation and higher statistical significance than both relationships between annual net ecosystem productivity and air temperature (R2 = 0.39, p = 0.096) and annual net ecosystem productivity and latitude (R2 = 0.47, p = 0.058). The CO2 emission surpassed assimilation in winter, early spring and late autumn. Moreover, the appearance of late, cold spring and early winter, reduced annual net ecosystem productivity. Therefore, the growing season length can be considered as one of the main factor affecting the annual carbon budget of pine forests.

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