Extreme Weather Impacts on Maize Yield: The Case of Shanxi Province in China

Abstract

Extreme weather can have negative impacts on crop production. In this study, we statistically estimate the impacts of dry days, heat waves, and cold days on maize yield based on household survey data from 1993 to 2011 in ten villages of Shanxi province, China. Our results show that dry days, heat waves, and cold days have negative effects on maize yield, although these effects are marginal if these extreme events do not increase dramatically. Specifically, a one percent increase in extreme-heat-degree-days and consecutive-dry-days results in a maize yield declines of 0.2% and 0.07%, respectively. Maize yield also is reduced by 0.3% for cold days occurring during the growing season from May to September. However, these extreme events can increase dramatically in a warmer world and result in considerable reduction in maize yields. If all the historical temperatures in the villages are shifted up by 2 degrees Celsius, total impacts of these extreme events would lead to a reduction of maize yield by over 30 percent. The impacts may be underestimated since we did not exclude the offset effect of adaptation measures adopted by farmers to combat these extreme events.

Seasonal Variation of Tropical Savanna Altered Agronomic Adaptation of Stock-6-Derived Inducer Lines

“…In maize, increasing temperature and GDD significantly shorten the growth period and rate, resulting in reduced post-silking aboveground biomass [ 31 ], 1000-kernel weight, and grain yield [ 53 ]. There was a negative association between increasing temperature and maize yield [ 54 , 55 ] in which each additional GDD30 + led to a yield reduction of about 1.0–1.2% [ 29 , 56 ]. High temperatures contributed to yield reduction, not only because of the damage to maize flowers during daytime [ 30 ], but also because of increased respiration and decreased net dry matter accumulation during nighttime [ 57 ].…”

Impact of Indo-Pacific Climate Variability on Rice Productivity in Bihar, India

“…The sixth low yield event of 2009-2010 had after-effects of flood in 2008 due to a breach of the embankment in Nepal [75]. As already discussed in Section 1, Bihar is a rainfed region and rainfed regions of India are affected by extreme hydrological events like some other exceptional regions across the globe [76,77]. Another cause for the decline was indicated by ONI (JJA of 2009 to JJA of 2009) and SOI (MAM 2009 to JJA 2009) as shown in Table 1.…”

Whole-Plant Measure of Temperature-Induced Changes in the Cytosolic pH of Potato Plants Using Genetically Encoded Fluorescent Sensor Pt-GFP

“…Temperature changes affect the activity of a number of processes, including photosynthesis and starch metabolism [7,8], which ultimately can lead to plant death or crop yield reduction. For example, a temperature rise of 1 • C above 35 • C could result in 1.34-4.29% loss of maize yield [9], and maize productivity also decreases by 0.3% on cold days occurring during the growing season [10]. Each 1 • C of global warming (increase in temperature from 11 • C to 19 • C) decreases wheat yield by 4.1-6.4% [11]; and under cold stress (2 • C/8 • C) there is a 35-78% decrease in wheat grain yield [12].…”