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Background: Climate change is inevitable owing from modern-day chemical agriculture, exerting detrimental impacts on sustainable crop production. Global agriculture is now facing serious threats from biotic stresses like weeds, pests, diseases, etc. These stresses not only hamper growth and production but also reduce crop quality. Exclusive reliance on synthetic inputs to tackle biotic stresses has created resistance, resurgence, residues, etc., leading to environmental pollution. Although plants adopt defensive mechansims, such biotic stresses need to be addressed properly with various eco-friendly organic farming approaches. Suitable modification and adoption of various organic agronomic practices (manual, mechanical, cultural, and biological) such as soil solarization, crop rotation, intercropping, tillage, sowing time and method, nutrient, water and intercultural operations, organic formulations, selection of resistant/tolerant varieties, etc., can mitigate the negative impacts of biotic stresses to a high extent resulting in uplift in crop production as well as the quality of produce. Microorganisms not only alter soil health positively for high crop production but also alleviate biotic stresses through bio-stimulant properties. Various indigenous technical knowledge approaches show great promise to tackle biotic stresses further. Short conclusion: Adequate research, integration of multiple technologies, build-up of awareness, etc., are the keys for successful organic plant protection under changing climate scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Sorghum is emerging as a viable crop option to increase food production under changing climate due to its resilience to drought and marginal soils. Appropriate planting date, crop cultivars, type of tillage and rotations, under contrasting climatic conditions, could make significant contribution on the effective management of sorghum under changing climatic conditions. A short-term study was carried out to investigate the effects of planting date, crop cultivar, tillage type and rotations on the growth and primary nutrient uptake of sorghum in contrasting climatic regions. Methods: The study was conducted in Free State - (FS) and KwaZulu Natal (KZN) Provinces of South Africa over two seasons (2020/21 and 2021/22). The two cultivars (Pan8816 and Macia) were sown in December (PD1) and in January (PD2) under conventional tillage (CT) and no-till (NT) and with two rotations (Sorghum-Cowpea-Sorghumand Sorghum-Sorghum-Sorghum) resulting in 2×2×2×2 factorial experiment. Results and discussion: In KZN, in both the first (2020/21) and second (2021/22) seasons, the effects of all the factors, except cultivar in the second season, were not significant on yield, and uptake of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). In the second season, Pan8816 (4.40 t/ha) produced 3.3 times higher yield than Macia (1.32 t/ha), and took up higher N, K and P. In FS, the early planted sorghum (1.15 t/ha for season one; 3.39 t/ha for season two) had significantly higher yield than late planted sorghum (0.434 and 0.91 t/ha for seasons one and two, respectively). Furthermore, the early-planted crops took up higher N, K and P than when planted late, while Pan8816 took up 1.74 times more P than Macia. Plants grown under CT (2.61 t/ha) produced significantly higher yield than under NT (1.70 t/ha), with plants under CT taking up significantly more K than those grown on NT. These findings suggest that in the drier FS, early planting under conventional tillage, while in the wetter KZN, selecting the appropriate cultivar (PAN8816), are essential for sorghum grain yield, at least in the short-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possible influence of global climate changes on agricultural production is becoming increasingly significant, necessitating greater attention to improving agricultural production in response to temperature rises and precipitation variability. As one of the main winter wheat-producing areas in China, the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of precipitation, accumulated temperature, and actual yield and climatic yield of winter wheat during the growing period in Shanxi Province were analysed in detail. With the utilisation of daily meteorological data collected from 12 meteorological stations in Shanxi Province in 1964–2018, our study analysed the change in winter wheat yield with climate change using GIS combined with wavelet analysis. The results show the following: (1) Accumulated temperature and precipitation are the two most important limiting factors among the main physical factors that impact yield. Based on the analysis of the ArcGIS geographical detector, the correlation between the actual yield of winter wheat and the precipitation during the growth period was the highest, reaching 0.469, and the meteorological yield and accumulated temperature during this period also reached its peak value of 0.376. (2) The regions with more suitable precipitation and accumulated temperature during the growth period of winter wheat in the study area had relatively high actual winter wheat yields. Overall, the average actual yield of the entire region showed a significant increasing trend over time, with an upward trend of 47.827 kg ha−1 yr−1. (3) The variation coefficient of winter wheat climatic yield was relatively stable in 2008–2018. In particular, there were many years of continuous reduction in winter wheat yields prior to 2006. Thereafter, the impact of climate change on winter wheat yields became smaller. This study expands our understanding of the complex interactions between climate variables and crop yield but also provides practical recommendations for enhancing agricultural practices in this region [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempted to observe the perception and adaptation strategies of farmers in the context of climate change. It observes that the majority of the farmers are aware of climate change and understand that they are facing problems due to it. The major problems faced by the farmers are the long duration of dryness due to lack of rainfall, weed pressure, very high temperatures, and crop disease. However, farmers are not very aware of technological adaptation and have changed the cropping time due to changes in the time of monsoon. The study recommends that there is a need for intensive micro and macro policy initiatives in terms of modern green sustainable technology along with awareness and skill development of the farmers. The government should also focus more on policy initiatives for sustainable agricultural practices in line with sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extreme drought in Europe in 2022 also hit hard the Great Hungarian Plain. In this short overview article, we summarize the natural environmental conditions of the region and the impact of river control works on the water-retention capacity of the landscape. In this respect, we also review the impact of intensive agricultural cultivation on soil structure and on soil moisture in light of the meteorological elements of the 2022 drought. The most important change is that the soil stores much less moisture than in the natural state; therefore, under the meteorological conditions of summer 2022, the evapotranspiration capacity was reduced. As a result, the low humidity in the air layers above the ground is not sufficient to trigger summer showers and thunderstorms associated with weather fronts and local heat convection anymore. Our proposed solution is to restore about one-fifth of the area to the original land types and usage before large-field agriculture. Low-lying areas should be transformed into a mosaic-like landscape with good water supply and evapotranspiration capacity to humidify the lower air layers. Furthermore, the unfavorable soil structure that has resulted from intensive agriculture should also be converted into more permeable soil to enhance infiltration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]