A century of breeding corn to boost yields in the US Midwest may have also made the crop more vulnerable to the hotter temperatures expected with climate change.
The amount of corn grown in the US more than quintupled during the 20th century due to a combination of breeding, agricultural intensification and favorable temperatures. But hotter and drier weather projected to arrive due to climate change threatens to slow or even reverse those gains.
“It’s fairly severe,” says Patrick Schnable at Iowa State University. “If you look at middle-of-the-road projections, corn yield goes down.” The worst scenarios project as much as a 50 per cent decrease in yield by 2100.
Source: newscientist.com
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Categories: Minnesota, Crops, Corn, Weather