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Vulnerability of agriculture to climate change is becoming increasingly apparent in recent years. During 2014 and 2015, India experienced trails of unusually widespread and untimely hailstorm events. The increased frequency of hailstorm events, especially in vulnerable ecosystem of Deccan Plateau region of India demanded appropriate measures to minimize adverse impact on agricultural crops. Therefore some of the post-hail measures including nutritional supplement, plant bio-regulators and canopy management were evaluated in field trials conducted at Maharashtra, India during 2014 and 2015. Amongst these, pruning of the hardy and indeterminate eggplant crop induced effective branches, which produced more flowers and fruits. Nitrogen supplemented with urea drenching and stress alleviating effects of salicylic acid promoted recovery in maize while drenching with humic acid along with spraying of potassium nitrate improved productivity of onion. These studies indicate the potential of technological interventions to cope with extreme events such as hailstorms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate data recorded for the last 40 years (1971- 2010) at meteorological station of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (Central Indian Punjab) and future changes in climate data derived from three General Circulation Models (GCMs), viz. HadCM3, CSIRO-Mk2 and CCCMA-CGCM2, were analysed. Past data showed increase in temperature, decrease in open pan evaporation and irregular trends in rainfall. Amongst GCMs, the HadCM3 model showed relatively more increase in minimum than maximum temperature. Averaged across GCMs and scenarios, CropSyst model-simulated crop yields of rice-wheat system showed 7%, 15% and 25% decrease in rice and 10%, 20% and 34% in wheat for the years 2020, 2050 and 2080 respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]